


Force of Habit

by ChipTheKeeper



Series: Forces at Work [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order (Video Game), The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Crossover, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:15:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 42,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24939661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChipTheKeeper/pseuds/ChipTheKeeper
Summary: A young Force-user on Alderaan leaves her comfortable life to join the crew of theMantisand join the ranks of the Jedi. More than a decade later, she reunites with someone from home, paving the way for a team-up between their two crews and an adventure that will change their lives forever.(The Jedi Fallen Order/Mandalorian crossover I deserve but will never get.)
Relationships: Cara Dune/Original Character(s), Cara Dune/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Forces at Work [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1924345
Comments: 25
Kudos: 35





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, in all likelihood we’re going to find out one day that Cal and the crew bit the dust before the events of the OT but for my purposes let’s just pretend that’s _not_ the most likely scenario and instead while Yoda and Luke are out goofing around in the woods this gang has been actually picking up and training stray Jedi babies for like 25 years because that’s way more fun to think about. Okay? Okay.

Sam Cardell was only five years old the first time her powers got her in trouble.

Small, shy, and stuttering, she was a ripe target for a blonde-headed bully named Goran. On their first day of school, he’d harassed her so mercilessly that she’d gone home in tears and begged her parents never to make her go back. But that was out of the question.

“We are citizens of Alderaan, little one,” her father had said, scooping her up into his lap to comfort her. “Your education is quite literally the most important thing in the world.”

Sam didn’t know what half of those words meant, so they didn’t do much to convince her that going back was worth it, but she trusted her father. She was only five, after all. She had no reason not to.

But the next day it happened again. Her oh-so-important Alderaanian education was going nowhere. When Goran wasn’t directly picking on her, she was too busy worrying about him picking on her to actually pay attention. She was too scared to speak up when the teacher called on her, afraid the bully would call out her stuttering in front of the whole class. But her silence didn’t help her any either. When play time came around, Goran cornered her in the back of the classroom while the rest of the students went about their little lives.

She cowered on the floor, wishing she could disappear or at least run away, but as hard as she tried, neither of those things would happen. He was saying something and she could tell it was nasty by his tone, but she couldn’t make it out. Some unfamiliar sound was filling her ears, whooshing through her head and pounding like the blood pulsing through her veins.

Goran nudged her with his foot, upset that she was ignoring his words. The sound got even louder as her fear and anger grew. He kicked her, and it grew to a deafening volume in her head.

Then the boy went to grab her, and Sam couldn’t take the sound anymore.

She threw out her hands to defend herself against his reach, but instead of just keeping him at arm’s length, it was as if the act pushed him across the room. Goran flew backwards what seemed to Sam to be miles but in reality was only a handful of feet, into a stack of blocks that a small group of kids had been building.

The commotion caught the attention of the rest of the students -- who for the first time in their short school careers were all quiet at once -- and the teacher. They all looked in unison at Sam, with her arms still extended and anger etched on her face. The anger quickly turned back into fear when she realized she was not only the subject of everyone’s attention but also about to get in big trouble.

Only Goran looked more afraid than she did.

From that moment on, he left her alone. Sam had gotten in as much trouble as a five-year-old could get into for pushing a classmate, which was not much. She was made to apologize to him -- and even at that very young age she recognized the irony of that -- and received another Alderaanian culture lesson from her father. Apparently the only thing in the world as important as her education was pacifism. Again, she had no idea what he was talking about. But peace between Goran and herself was simple after that. He continued to bully anyone else he could, but he remained afraid of her and whatever magic had sent him flying across the classroom.

Sam was glad for that. After the incident, she didn’t hear that terrifying sound in her head for a long time. It wasn’t until five years later, when a pretty little dark-haired girl moved to their school and became Goran’s newest target, that it filled her ears again.

She’d grown out of her shy nature and small stature and her stutter (mostly) but was still a loner for the most part. Sam took her Alderaanian responsibility of education seriously, and when she wasn’t helping out at her mother’s restaurant she was reading, filling her mind with stories of magic and adventure. Unfortunately, none of the stories ever had the answers she was looking for. None could explain the sound or the power she’d managed to use on Goran.

The new girl apparently shared her hobby for reading. Instead of interacting with her new classmates at lunch on her first day, she buried her face in a book right next to Sam. Goran eyed them from the next table but thought better of trying anything when Sam met his gaze. The dark-haired girl read on and ate her lunch without ever realizing anything was amiss.

But later that day, when the class was outside under the warm Alderaan sun for physical education, the bully saw his chance. Goran had gained a small band of goons over the years, similarly mean boys who were good for little more than forming circles around his prey so that they couldn’t run from him. On his signal, they formed just that type of circle around the new girl while the instructor’s attention was on another group of students.

Sam, ever the studious learner, was listening intently to the instructor when the sound from years before began whooshing in her ears. She couldn’t understand why. She had nothing to fear in that moment, nothing she needed protection from, nothing to be angry about. Nothing she had felt the last time she’d heard it was happening now.

She looked around, thinking perhaps the sound wasn’t in her head at all but coming from elsewhere. No one else seemed to hear it, though. Suddenly her eyes found the ring of boys that always meant trouble for some poor classmate of hers, and the sound grew louder. Without thinking, she started off in their direction. Sam had never used her sway over Goran before, never defended her peers against his bullying. Her father’s lecture on pacifism had long ago taken root in her mind. Plus, she had no desire to get in trouble of any kind again.

But she found herself breaking into his ring of goons and standing between him and the new girl before she could think about the consequences.

“Leave her alone, Goran,” she said with all the confidence a 10-year-old could convey, surprised she could hear herself speak over the continually growing sound in her head.

The bully’s eyes widened and he gulped, but he didn’t back down. “You’re not the boss of me,” he countered intellectually, trying to sound tough in front of his friends. “What are you gonna do about it?”

He took a step toward her and the whooshing in her ears grew louder still, but she fought to stay focused. “You know what I’ll do,” she said, even though she wasn’t sure herself what would happen. She raised her hands ever so slowly out in front of her, praying they wouldn’t push him again but that it would scare him anyway.

Her prayers were answered. Goran spun and ran straight into two of his goons, knocking all three of them to the ground. They scrambled up quickly and ran back to the main group of students, leaving Sam and the new girl standing there alone.

The sound faded away as she watched them retreat and turned to the girl. “Hi. You okay?”

The girl nodded shyly, her right eye covered by her dark hair. She pushed it behind her ear, revealing another dark brown iris. “What were you going to do?”

“Probably nothing,” the taller girl said with a shrug of fake confidence. Suddenly she realized she was no longer nervous about the run-in with Goran but instead about the new girl’s pretty brown eyes looking at her expectantly. “I’m S-S-Sam.”

“Hi, Sam,” the girl said, mercifully ignoring the stutter. “Thanks for helping me. I’m Cara.”

~

Sam Cardell was nineteen years old the second time her powers got her in trouble.

For years they’d been mostly dormant and the sound that came with them usually warned her to remove herself from whatever stressful situation she was in before they caused problems. Still, there were times when she’d gotten so angry or stressed out that she’d sent an object or two flying across a room. But luckily no more people.

Until the day the stormtroopers showed up.

It began as just another ordinary Alderaanian day. Sam slept late after a long night at the restaurant, then went right back to work before they were to open for the lunch rush. Since her father had died unexpectedly, Sam had done everything she could to help her mother at the restaurant. Jolee Cardell was known as one of the best chefs in Crevasse City, and her establishment was a favorite of both locals and tourists, which was great for business but bad for their free time.

Not that Sam would complain. She couldn’t have been more proud of her mother, and she didn’t know what else she would be doing otherwise. She’d learned and learned and learned throughout all of school, but none of it had helped her figure out what she wanted out of life. Eventually, she reasoned, she’d have to find out what her powers were and if they meant something more about her purpose in the galaxy. Eventually she’d leave and explore, have adventures. But not now.

For now, she was satisfied with running the restaurant and finding fun where she could, usually with Cara. After Sam had defended her, the two had become practically inseparable. She told Cara about her mysterious power -- the first time she’d told anyone -- and later, when her father died, Cara had been a rock for her. They were best friends with the deepest connection. And over the last couple of years it had grown into something deeper still, although they didn’t like to concern themselves with trying to define it. They were just happy and together, that was all that mattered.

Jolee was already prepping the kitchen for the day when her daughter arrived. “About time, sleepy,” she greeted her. “Thought you were going to sleep through lunch.”

“And miss out on the nerf steak special? You know me better than that,” Sam said, picking a bite of food off the cutting board in front of her mother and earning a slap on the hand. “Ow! Hey!”

“I know if you don’t go get the chairs down and ready you’ll have a lot of food to clean off the floor when everybody makes a mess because they’re standing,” Jolee said without looking up from her prep work.

“Yeah, yeah,” her daughter said with a wave of her hand, already starting out toward the dining area.

“Cara going to come by today?”

“Maybe for dinner!” Sam called, exiting the kitchen.

But if her girlfriend ever did come around for dinner, Sam knew nothing about it.

That afternoon was a busy one, like almost all of them during tourist season, and she felt like she was running in five different directions when the stormtroopers showed up. She didn’t notice at first, but when the usually lively din of the restaurant gave way to a nervous silence, she finally saw them.

There were three, all armored from head to toe and equipped with blasters. They’d entered and begun surveying the dining room quietly. Sam immediately felt a familiar whooshing in her ears as her blood ran hot. It was the first time she’d seen any bucketheads in person, on Alderaan, but she knew what they were. For as long as she could remember, she’d seen them on the holo-news reports. And she’d listened to her parents, teachers, and other Alderaanian adults scoff at those reports, calling them propaganda of the Empire, saying the troopers were doing more to terrorize worlds across the galaxy than keep the peace.

Sam went right up to them. “You’re not welcome here. You need to leave.”

“Says who?” the leader asked in a static-filled voice.

“Says me. And my mother, who owns the place,” she answered, trying to ignore the growing sound in her own head. Outside the window she could see more of them. The more she counted, the louder the sound got.

“This is a routine Imperial patrol,” the trooper said, stepping toward her menacingly. “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.”

They didn’t have anything to hide, but Sam knew she was speaking for everyone present when she firmly told them again to leave. “I said, you’re not welcome.”

But she realized too late that _she_ did have something to hide.

The three troopers all pointed their blasters at her in threat, and Sam’s hands went up defensively, as they had against Goran so long ago. And just as with Goran, they did more than just defend her.

In the blink of an eye, the stormtroopers were flying backward, smashing through the glass storefront and landing in a confused pile at the feet of their comrades outside. Sam stared in disbelief at her own hands while the troopers all stared similarly at each other, then at her.

She looked up at them just in time to see the blue ring of light before it stunned her into unconsciousness.

~

When Sam woke up, she had no idea where she was. Nor, it seemed, any clue how to do anything but groan in pain. Her head pounded and her limbs simply would not move. She forced her eyes open and found herself in a small, dank cell.

She wasn’t quite sure why she’d been fortunate enough to wake up in the first place. From everything she knew about stormtroopers, about the Empire in general, most who physically fought them ended up dead. Why had they only stunned her? Did it have something to do with her powers? With the noise in her head that for some reason still hadn’t gone away?

As those questions swirled around in her mind, her limbs finally woke up and allowed her to stand. Sam carefully moved to the door of the cell to look out, finding herself in a long corridor of other cells manned by a pair of troopers on each end. For a brief moment of insanity, she thought maybe she could use her mysterious power to push the cell door open, then take out one pair or another. But even if she were to somehow make it that far, she had no way of knowing what dangers lie beyond that.

Suddenly the sound between her ears stopped, and for reasons she couldn’t explain, Sam felt as if she wasn’t alone in the cell. She whirled around, eyes scanning all its dark corners, but she saw no one.

“Hello?” she called. “Anyone there?”

Only tired voices from other cells telling her to shut up responded. Until she heard a pair of soft beeps come from above her head.

Sam almost fell over in shock when she looked up and saw the faces of a red-headed man and an adorable little droid looking down at her from the cell’s ventilation shaft opening.

“Hey,” the man said. “Wanna get out of there?”

She blinked, unable to process what was going on. “Uhh….”

“It’s not that difficult of a question,” the man said, and the droid booped in agreement.

Sam shook her head violently, as if to clear out whatever strange dream this was, but when she looked back up they were still there waiting for her answer.

The droid beeped at the man, who nodded back to it. “Look, you can stay here if you want, or you can come with me and I’ll explain what got you here in the first place.”

“How do you know what got me here? Who are you?” Sam asked, finally finding her voice along with the realization that she had many, many questions.

“I’m Cal, he’s BD-1,” he said, and the droid beeped cheerily. “I really need you to decide right now or else we’ll get caught.”

Sam still had a hundred questions and plenty of doubt, but a voice in her head told her to trust him. So she did.

Cal helped her up into the ventilation shaft, where the two of them crawled along behind BD-1, who led the way with the light in his head. Eventually the maze of shafts led to natural light, and the three of them climbed through a hole in the building’s exterior wall, dropping down on a conveniently placed boulder. Sam squinted to look around, realizing they were still on Alderaan but not in Crevasse City. The air was cold and thin, and they appeared to have just escaped a facility built into the side of a cliff.

“Where are we?” she asked, looking around at the surrounding mountains.

“Imperial outpost,” Cal replied, his eyes also scanning the jagged mountains for something. “Only one on Alderaan.”

“I didn’t even know they had one here.”

“That’s the idea,” he said, then perked up when the droid perched on his back beeped and booped excitedly. “There’s our ride.”

Sam looked around for a ship but saw nothing. “Uhh...where?”

“Just follow me.” She did as she was told, trailing Cal down the rocky cliffside and across a small valley to another rocky cliffside. There, a dark doorway appeared to open up in midair. “The ship is cloaked. Let’s get onboard and I’ll explain everything.”

Head spinning, she followed him up an invisible ramp and into the ship. They were greeted by a dark-skinned woman at a holotable, who then shouted toward the cockpit.

“Get us in the air, Greez. Crevasse City.”

“Crevasse City, here we come!” a voice called back.

The woman led Sam and Cal to a bench nearby as they took off. She sat, as did the confused Alderaanian, but Cal leaned against the holotable with his arms crossed as BD-1 hopped down from his shoulder.

“Hello, Sam,” the woman said as if they were old friends. “I’m Cere. I assume Cal already introduced himself and BD.”

Sam nodded dumbly, her mind swimming with questions.

“I’m sure you’re really confused right now,” Cere went on. “Let’s start from the beginning. Do you know why you were being detained?”

“Attacking stormtroopers,” Sam replied, putting it as simply as possible even though she would argue it wasn’t actually an attack because she didn’t know what was happening. “Pushed them through a window defending my mother’s restaurant.”

“Right. But you didn’t actually touch them, did you?” Cal asked, but it wasn’t really a question.

Sam stared at him. “How’d you know that? Were you there?”

“No,” Cere replied for him. “We monitor Imperial transmissions. Ones with details like that tend to get our attention.”

“Why? W-What did I do?” the Alderaanian asked.

“You used the Force, Sam,” said Cal.

“The...what?”

“The Force,” Cere repeated. “It’s the energy that flows through everything in the galaxy. Some people are sensitive to it, and can manipulate it, even without knowing what it is.”

“And I’m one of those people?” Sam asked, only a fraction less confused.

“You are,” the woman confirmed. “And so are we.”

She gestured at herself and Cal, who nodded. “You’re a Jedi, Sam,” he said. “Or at least, you could be. With the proper training.”

After a moment of silence, Sam chuckled dryly. “I don’t....what does that even mean? A Jedi? What is that? What am I doing here? Where are we going? How did you know where to find me?”

The questions spilled out all at once as she stood and began pacing around.

“We’re here,” called the voice from the cockpit. Sam followed it, leaving behind the two Jedi.

“Where?” she asked, then forgot her questions completely as her eyes landed on the two sentients in the pilot and copilot’s seats. The four-armed Latero pilot was interesting enough, but the gray-skinned, silver-haired woman sitting next to him muttering softly with her eyes rolled back was a whole different story. “What the--”

“Put her down, Greez,” came Cal’s voice behind her. “Merrin, keep up the cloaking. Never know who’s watching the place.”

Greez, the pilot, did as he was told and Sam managed to avert her eyes from the odd sight in front of her to look out the viewport. Suddenly she knew exactly where they were.

“This is my home,” she said. They were landing right on top of the building that housed both her mother’s restaurant and, upstairs, her own apartment.

“Yes. And if you choose, you can stay here,” said Cere, joining all the rest in the cockpit and placing a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “But please, hear us out first.”

The young Alderaanian just looked at her for a long moment. Everything was happening so quickly, Sam wasn’t sure she wasn’t dreaming.

 _Oh, what the hell?_ she figured. _Might as well see where this dream is going._

She led Cere and Cal (plus BD-1) inside through the rooftop door into her apartment, where she was immediately startled by the sounds of movement in her living room. _Blast it!_ The stormtroopers must have realized she’d broken out of the detention center and sent more to retrieve her.

Without a word, she grabbed the nearest heavy object, and Cere pulled a blaster from her back. The three of them crept through the hallway and into the living room, ready for a fight against the bucket-headed troopers.

But instead they were met by a yelp of surprise from a face familiar to Sam.

“Mom?!” She dropped her blunt object and hugged her mother tightly, relieved for more reasons than one.

“Oh, Sammy,” Jolee said in exasperation as she hugged her back. “I was so worried. Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m okay, Mom. I’m okay.” They released each other from the hug and Sam tried her best to explain what had happened and who the strangers with her were. But since it was still too confusing even to her, she eventually turned it over to Cere.

The woman painstakingly explained everything -- how they’d found Sam, what their mission was as a crew, how they’d spent years helping young Force-sensitive people stay safe from the Empire after the fall of the Jedi Order at the end of the Clone Wars, how Sam would have been identified by the Jedi at a much younger age had the wars not called their seekers to other work then all but eradicated them.

Sam’s head was still spinning with all the new information, but Jolee seemed to understand better what was going on.

“I always knew. I always knew there was more to the story of the Jedi than what the Empire told us,” she said, turning from Cere to her daughter. “Just like I always knew you were meant for more than this, Sammy.”

Sam was taken aback. Her mother had never said anything like that before. She’d never talked about the mysterious power she had, never tried to convince her she belonged anywhere other than right where she was.

“Mom, what are...what are you talking about? I’m fine here, with you,” Sam argued half-heartedly. Sure, she’d long been bored on Alderaan, but she had no burning desire to leave it. She loved her mother and their work together. She couldn’t leave that. And that was to say nothing of Cara, who she’d only just begun to admit she loved more than anything. How could she possibly leave either of them behind, even for the grand adventure she’d always wanted?

“And you’ll always be home here,” Jolee said, her eyes and voice full of emotion. “But these are the people you were meant to be with all along, Sam. Now you have the chance to be who you were always supposed to be. To make a difference.”

All Sam could do was stare at her, feeling as though she was being split in two. On one hand was the people she loved, and the familiar, comfortable life she’d always lived. On the other, a true purpose, and all the answers she’d always sought. She searched her mother’s soft gray eyes, the ones she shared. They were sure. Sad, but sure.

“Go,” Jolee told her with a squeeze of her hand. “Alderaan will always be here if it doesn’t work out.”

Before Sam could respond, the four-armed pilot ran in, panting as he skidded to a stop in the living room.

“They’re here!” Greez told the Jedi. “Stormtroopers. A whole platoon outside.”

Cal and Cere jumped to their feet as the heavy sound of marching boots floated up into the apartment. Apparently news had gotten around that she’d escaped the detention center.

“Time to make a choice, Sam,” the red-headed man said urgently. He moved to Sam’s front door and unhooked a device from his utility belt, hitting a button on it to activate a beam of bright, buzzing green light.

Cal stood ready to confront any intruders as Sam’s mind sped through the options. But it was a useless debate. Staying would only put her -- and, more importantly, the people she loved -- in danger. And her mother was right. She could always come back.

They heard the troopers start up the stairs.

“Now or never, kid,” Cere said, starting back toward the door to the roof with her blaster trained on the front door.

“I’m coming,” Sam called back, her eyes still on her mother. She hugged her again, even tighter than before, hoping it would be enough to tell her how hard it was to leave. “I love you, Mom.”

Jolee squeezed her with everything she had. “I love you too, Sammy. Now get going.”

They broke apart and Sam did as she was told, starting off toward the door with Cere. With one step to go, she stopped in her tracks and turned back.

“Mom,” she called. “Tell Cara....Tell her I...”

She couldn’t bring herself to say it, too afraid that she wouldn’t be able to make herself leave if the words actually came out.

“I will,” her mother promised. “Go!”

And so she went. Away from her home, her family, and everything she ever knew. Off on a journey to a life she couldn’t even begin to imagine.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 11 years after leaving Alderaan, another fateful encounter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the enthusiasm so far! I'm pretty excited about this story so seeing that other people are too is awesome!

_**~ 11 years later ~** _

Even after more than a decade of training, Sam often found it difficult to focus on her meditation.

It was an important part of being a Jedi, she knew that. She knew she had to maintain her connection to the Force through it, knew that it would help her help other people. But some days it was just impossible. Today was one of those days. That was to be expected, though. It was far from a normal day.

Today, it had been ten years since the destruction of Alderaan.

Ten years since she’d lost her homeworld, and everyone she had ever loved. Her mother, the rest of her family, her friends. And Cara. There had hardly been a day in those ten years when she hadn’t had to convince her mind not to wander to Cara during her meditation, and today she had to do the same for all of them.

It had been one thing to leave them all behind to go off with Cal and the rest of the crew, thinking one day she’d come back and share all her stories of adventure as a Jedi. But only a year later that dream had been erased. And it was a whole different feeling to know she’d never be able to go back, to see any of them ever again.

Though Sam knew she should be meditating on the Force, she allowed herself to think about everyone that had been lost. Just for a little while, just for today. She’d gotten an early start to the day for just that purpose, hoping if she could get her meditation out of the way before her master woke, he wouldn’t know she’d been doing it incorrectly.

Sam believed she and Cal would have gotten along perfectly if they’d just been normal people, just friends. But as master and apprentice, they often butted heads (for starters, she wasn’t much a fan of anyone being her “master”). One thing they didn’t see eye-to-eye on was Alderaan. Cal had tried many times to convince her to let go of her connection to her homeworld, to move on from everyone and everything she’d lost in its destruction. That was the Jedi way, after all. Kids who had been recruited into the order, like he had, “lost” their families and homes all the time. They all had to let them go. Attachment was a path to the Dark Side, he lectured.

He’d had to lecture her on many things throughout her training, but overall it had been a smooth 11 years since she’d joined their crew. Sam, Cal, Cere, Merrin, and Greez continued to travel back and forth across the galaxy in search of potential Jedi, picking them up for various lengths of time to train them or take them to safer places during the war against the Empire. The majority of them stayed for a few years at most -- only Sam had managed to become a permanent member of the crew, having nowhere to go home to.

They’d long ago traded in the cramped Stinger luxury liner for a larger cargo ship, which Greez had predictably named the _Mantis II_ , so they had room for everyone and storage space for random shipping gigs they picked up for credits. And when they weren’t on the go, they retreated to their home base on Bogano, a planet with a sentient population that fluctuated only when they came and went.

That’s where they were on the anniversary of the Alderaan Disaster, where Sam was failing in her attempt to meditate under the early morning suns.

“You’re distracted, aren’t you?” a voice said behind her.

“I am now,” Sam replied, opening her eyes and turning around to see Cere, who quirked a doubtful eyebrow at her. She sighed. “Okay, I was.”

“That’s understandable,” the older woman said. She had always been more forgiving than Cal. “It’s a pretty significant day for you.”

“Yeah….” the Alderaanian said distantly. _Significant_ , she thought. _That’s one word for it_. In truth, it was agonizing. It was devastating. But she couldn’t show any of that. She couldn’t stay attached. She stood and faced Cere. “Don’t tell Cal.”

“I won’t. But he’ll know.”

“Yeah, he’s annoying like that,” Sam admitted.

Looking for a little change of scenery, she made her way to the old Zeffo vault that stretched high into the Bogano sky. It had always been a place of solace for her, helped her connect to the Force even on her most distracted days. And it didn’t hurt that Cal hated going inside it. He’d seen the Dark Side in there, Cere had told her years ago, and he left her alone anytime she retreated to it.

Inside, Sam found the quiet she needed, both in her surroundings and in her mind. She powered up her lightsaber, and its pale blue blade hummed soothingly as she went through the forms for practice. She had never had much cause to use it in any real conflicts, a consequence of their desire to keep their status as Jedi as covert as possible even after the fall of the Empire. But from the moment she’d activated it for the first time, Sam had loved the feeling of it humming in her hands.

She watched herself in the mirrored wall on the side of the vault and stopped her motions when the thought of Alderaan came back around and made her realize that the person she’d been there would hardly have recognized her now. She was still tall and thin, still had the same gray eyes, but most everything else about her was different after 11 years. Her once long, dark hair was now kept short and dyed silver. She had new scars from dozens of battles and fights, and she wore the same dirty, brown vest over a tan shirt every day. Even her face had changed, she realized as she studied it in the shattered glass. At 30 years old she looked more like her father now, after hearing almost daily throughout her youth how much she resembled her mom.

As different as she now was on the outside, Sam didn’t think the same applied to her personality, to her mind. Obviously a lot had changed on her path to becoming a Jedi, but she still felt like mostly the same person. She was just as curious, just as hungry for adventure, just as hard-headed. _Just as Alderaanian_ , she concluded with a sad chuckle.

“Is your reflection so amusing?”

Sam jumped, startled by the soft, accented voice behind her. “Blast it, Merrin. How many times do I have to ask you not to sneak up on me in here?”

It was nearly impossible to sneak up on a Jedi for any regular person, but the Nightsister’s ability to apparate out of thin air gave her a unique advantage over them, one she frequently used on Sam just for fun.

“It was not my choice this time,” she said. “Cal sent me to get you. We’re leaving for a job soon.”

“Okay, great. I’ll be over to the ship in a little while.”

“Have to finish looking at your funny face first?” the witch asked with a grin before disappearing again in a flash of magic green smoke.

Sam shook her head and smiled, turning back to the wall for one last look. “Something like that.”

~

A few days later, Sam had successfully put her homeworld out of her mind. Cal had given her plenty of space for the remainder of the all-important day (as much as he could after they’d taken off in the _Mantis_ , anyway), and she’d decided not to feel bad about thinking about it just for that time.

But now they were closing in on Coruscant for a delivery, and she had to be focused. Sam sat with Greez in the cockpit as he guided the ship out of hyperspace and toward the planet’s surface.

“Now listen, kid,” he told her, still using the term even though she hadn’t been a kid for quite some time -- everyone they’d picked up had been Greez’s kid for the whole of their stay -- “I know you’re gonna want to run off and find the nearest eatery with authentic Coruscant food, but trust me, there is no such thing. They steal everything here and none of it is made right. Just wait until old Greezy can get his hands on some ingredients and I’ll make us all a nice meal.”

Sam shook her head. The Latero gave her pretty much the same warning everywhere they went, though she’d never once felt the urge to “run off” to find a meal when they arrived on a new world. He just loved cooking for his crew. And they loved to indulge him.

“No way, Greezy Money, this time I’m cookin’. Gonna whip us up some mouth-watering nerf steaks,” she joked. On the rare occasions he had let her use “his” kitchen, her old favorite from her mother’s restaurant was the only thing she’d really known how to cook. She made them fine, but nowhere near as well as Jolee.

“Actually that doesn’t sound too bad,” he said as he brought the ship down on a landing platform, apparently missing the part where she’d been joking. “If I can find some, I might just let you do that.”

Sam didn’t have time to take it back, as the crew immediately got down to business unloading their cargo. With no other jobs lined up and so far no reports of any Force-sensitives needing their help, there was no telling how long they’d end up staying on Coruscant. She didn’t figure it would be very long, though. Neither Cal nor Cere seemed happy to be there, back on the world where they’d been trained at the Jedi Temple by their long-dead masters. She couldn’t blame them. The moment she stepped off the ship, Sam felt as if she was surrounded by thousands of ghosts. It must have been exponentially more disturbing to people who had actually known some of those ghosts.

That haunted feeling aside, Sam was delighted to be there. It was her first time on the former capital world, and the sheer magnitude of the city and the amount of interesting things to see excited her greatly. There must have been a trillion sentients on the planet, and she was interested in all of their stories equally. Some she could glean just by looking at them, but she could sense even more through the Force. Cal had his psychometry, his Force echoes to find out stories from objects, but Sam had a uniquely strong ability to tap into people’s inner thoughts and feelings. When she allowed herself -- which was not often, out of respect -- she could hear them as clearly as she would have if they’d been speaking directly to her, see the memories as if she were watching on a holovid.

After making their delivery, the crew hopped back aboard the _Mantis_ for a quick ride to park at the nearest spaceport, where thousands of stories fought for space in Sam’s head. People of all kinds of species from all kinds of worlds rushed about, and she watched them all with awe, listening to any little snippet she could as their little crew made its way through.

A Rodian passed by on her left, and Sam heard him wonder if his boss would ever give him a raise. Two Twi’leks crossed her path, one annoyed by the other’s slow gait, she sensed. A family of Wookiees stood nearby, the children excited by their surroundings and causing their parents so much stress it made Sam anxious herself for a moment.

An armor-clad man in a Mandalorian helmet went by on the right, and Sam stopped in her tracks. She looked back at him as he passed her, taking in the shine of his armor beneath the pouch slung across his chest. She could hear no thoughts, no story from him, but there was something....the Force was strong with him. Incredibly strong.

She turned and whistled two notes at Cal, who understood immediately. It wasn’t a very subtle signal, but it got the job done. He told the rest of the crew to go on, then came back to stand next to her with BD in his usual perch on his back. “Got someone?”

By then Sam had lost the man in the crowd, but she figured between the three of them they could find him back. Just as she was about to explain, though, they heard the sound of a blaster cocking behind their backs.

“Not another step,” a gruff female voice said, and the two Jedi sighed as they put their hands up in surrender. “You take another step toward my friend and you won’t leave this planet breathing.”

Sam grinned sideways at her master. “Can I try this time? Lemme try this time.”

“Don’t get me shot,” he replied with a roll of his green eyes.

Without turning around or lowering her hands, Sam narrowed her eyes and focused on the mind of the woman behind her. “You will put your blaster down,” she commanded calmly.

“What are you on? I’m not gonna put my blaster down,” the woman said angrily.

“Sam...” Cal hissed under his breath.

“One more try,” she said, closing her eyes completely and motioning with her hand as she focused. “You _will_ put your blaster down.”

“I’ll put my blaster down on your face!” the woman threatened.

“Okay, clearly I need to keep practicing at this,” Sam said, opening her eyes and sighing. It wasn’t her fault she wasn’t given many opportunities to work on her Jedi mind tricks. She could take thoughts from people’s minds without even trying, but planting them there was a different story.

“Yes, you do,” her master agreed. “But I think the problem is that she’s too strong-minded for it to work anyway.”

Sam focused on the woman’s mind again, trying to hear her thoughts, her story. 

“Yes, I....I can sense that now,” she said, finally getting inside her head. There was anger there, so much anger. And sadness, loss, pain. It felt familiar, felt like being in her own head. Sam felt a chill run up her spine as she realized why. They’d been grieving over the same thing just days earlier. This woman was from Alderaan.

She reached back further into her mind with the Force, searching for a memory of their world. When she found one -- of her own face, the face she had 11 years ago, not the one of today -- her breath left her.

This wasn’t just any woman from Alderaan.

Sam turned around slowly. The woman holding the blaster was bigger than she remembered, slightly taller and now covered with muscle. Her voice was different, and she wore an unfamiliar glare and tattoos on her face and arm. But it was her. There was no denying it.

“Cara?” she said, her voice small and quivering.

The dark-haired woman’s glare turned to a confused frown upon hearing her name. Her aim at Sam’s head wavered as she studied the face attached to it. It took a moment, but the recognition eventually fell over her. She gasped softly.

“Sam?”

A mechanical voice cut in before Sam could reply. “I told you we never should have come this close to a core world.”

The Mandalorian was now at Sam and Cal’s backs, while the rest of the _Mantis_ crew had returned and surrounded Cara, who shook off her shock at seeing her old friend.

“Wouldn’t have been a problem if your piece of crap ship hadn’t broken down,” she replied to the masked man, her voice gruff again as she aimed the blaster at Cal’s head this time.

“Let’s everybody just calm down, now,” Cere said from her right. “No one needs to get hurt.”

Sam was still staring at Cara, speechless, unable to move until her master nudged her with his elbow. “Get talkin’,” he said through his teeth, clearly suggesting she use whatever familiarity she had with the other woman to get them out of this.

But Sam had no idea where to start. Where could you possibly start over with someone you’d believed was dead for ten whole years? Cal and Cere weren’t the only ones who knew the ghosts on this planet, apparently.

“It’s okay, Cara,” she managed to say. “We just want to talk to him.”

She jerked her thumb back toward the Mandalorian, finally focusing again on his mind instead. But in doing so, she grew confused. Nothing in it gave her the idea that he was Force-sensitive after all. Had she made a mistake? That would be a first.

As she turned around and studied him, the pouch across his chest wiggled almost imperceptibly. “Wait. No. We want to talk to whoever he’s hiding in that.”

She pointed at the pouch and in the blink of an eye, he drew his own blaster. “Not gonna happen, pal.”

Before Sam could even make a bad joke about not trying the mind trick again, Cara’s voice saved her. “Mando. Let’s hear them out.”

After a long moment he lowered his gun reluctantly. “Fine. But not here.”

An awkward silence fell over the strange group despite the continued bustle of the spaceport, which apparently saw enough blaster standoffs throughout the day that no one had bothered to pay theirs any mind. Finally, Greez broke the tension.

“Hey, you guys hungry? I hear Sammy makes a mean nerf steak.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgot to add this last time but if you're on tumblr feel free to follow me or come say hey @chippingthegoalkeeper


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: this chapter features the first (and hopefully only) time I have knowingly and blatantly included a factual error from the Star Wars universe. Bonus points to you if you can spot it. We also get hilariously meta.

The whole odd group of Cara, Mando, and the _Mantis_ crew -- minus Greez, who went off in search of dinner ingredients -- made its way back to where the cargo ship had been parked, on an upper level of the spaceport.

It was mostly a silent trip, save for whispered assurances between pairs on either side of the previous standoff. Sam wanted desperately to be able to say something, anything, to Cara, but her words failed her. She was still in shock. One minute Cara had been a distant memory from a long time ago on a place that no longer existed, and the next minute she was right there in front of her, alive and well. It made no sense.

As usual, Cal could sense her distraction. “I need you to focus here, Sam,” he told her quietly as they all boarded the ship and gathered in the common area.

“Yes, Master,” she muttered, trying her best to do as he said. They still hadn’t gotten a glimpse of whatever Force-sensitive being she had identified -- the Mandalorian was taking no chances of it being seen by anyone else, apparently. That boded well for their purposes, she supposed. Since the fall of the Jedi Order, Coruscant hadn’t exactly been a welcoming place for their kind. But once they were securely locked in the _Mantis_ , she requested to see whomever it was.

“No,” the masked man said flatly. “You talk first. How do I know I can trust you?”

Cere spoke for them, as she usually did in that scenario. She gave the same speech she’d given Sam’s mother so long ago, the same speech she’d given the mothers and fathers of frightened potential Jedi they’d found all across the galaxy: They were there to help. They wouldn’t make anyone come with them if they chose not to, but they would care for and train anyone who did. Their main objective was to keep anyone they could safe from the Empire -- or, as it became later, the remnants of the Empire.  
Though the Mandalorian’s helmet obscured the view of his facial expressions as the old Jedi woman spoke to him, Sam was able to reach into his mind and sensed that he believed them but was still uneasy.

“What’s the problem?” she asked calmly but directly, as she felt he would appreciate.

He looked at her silently for a moment before speaking. “What you’ve told me doesn’t line up with what I was told about the Jedi. Aren’t you...sorcerers?”

“Sorcerers?” Sam repeated, looking with amusement at Cal. “That sounds like way more fun.”

Her master ignored her. “To those unfamiliar with the Jedi, their power can look like sorcery, yes. But there’s no magic involved. We simply manipulate the Force, the energy that binds the galaxy together.” He paused, looking over at the Nightsister. “Well except for Merrin, she’s definitely a witch. But a good one. And not a Jedi.”

Cara shot a confused look at Sam, who just shrugged as if to say _Long story_.

The Mandalorian absorbed the new information quietly again, calculating. He held the pouch holding the being in question closer to his chestplate.

“I was also told you were enemies of the Mandalorians,” he said, looking down at the pouch. “I was given the mission of bringing this child to your people....but it has been in my care for a year. I have no desire to hand him over to an enemy race, sorcerers or not.”

“I understand,” said Cere. “It’s true, there is a history of conflict between the Jedi and Mandalorians. But that history is the result of poor decisions by individuals long gone. Our people have suffered similar fates much more recently, driving us both underground, into hiding. It seems to me we have more in common now than we have differences.”

“My own people had a similar opinion of the Jedi,” Merrin chimed in. “But I can assure you, this group of them will allow no harm to come to your little one.”

Before the masked man could respond, a sound escaped the pouch, as if the child inside was speaking, trying to join the conversation about his own fate. The Mandalorian sighed in resignation, looked around at the expectant eyes, and slowly opened the flap of the pouch.

Whatever Sam had been expecting to see, this certainly wasn’t it. The child was green-skinned and wrinkled, with huge black eyes and long, pointy ears. It looked around at the Jedi, who in turn looked at each other.

Cal’s face held a look of disbelief. “It...it looks like--”

“A baby.” “Yoda.” Sam and Cere spoke at the same time.

“Yes!” Cal said with a snap of his fingers. “It looks like a baby Yoda.”

Sam’s face scrunched in confusion. “Wait, what? Like, _Master_ Yoda?”

“You’re right,” Cere agreed with Cal, as the child tilted its head and cooed at her. “It’s....a baby Yoda.”

“ _Legendary Jedi warrior and teacher_ , Yoda?” Sam asked again. She’d heard the two of them speak many times over the years about the wise old master who’d helped train them, but she’d never stopped to wonder what he had looked like. She had been on many worlds and had seen many, many species of sentients, but never anyone like this.

“Yes,” Cere finally answered. “I’ve only seen two other beings of this species. Both were among the most powerful Jedi masters the order had ever known. Chances are good this child could be the same.”

At that moment Greez returned, a tote bag full of food on each of his four arms and a stunned look on his face when he saw the child. “What is that?!”

Sam chuckled. “Baby Yoda, apparently.”

~

The serious conversation and awe over the Yoda-like child paused while Greez cooked and served a delicious meal for the group, and in that time Sam managed to get Cal’s blessing to take some time to catch up with the old friend she’d thought she had lost with Alderaan.

“Just be mindful of your feelings,” he warned cryptically.

But Sam couldn’t even tell what she was feeling. Still shock, mostly. But also relief? That made sense. Nervousness? That didn’t. She tried to work through it as the two of them left the ship and began wandering aimlessly through the spaceport, an unfamiliar and awkward silence between them.

Cara finally broke it when they came to a railing at the center of the circular starship garage, where they leaned over and looked down at the endless floors below.

“You look different,” she said, and Sam had to laugh.

“So do you,” she nodded at Cara’s scuffed armor and bicep tattoo. “Much more rugged than the girl I remember.”

“Well, I had to learn how to fight for myself when you left,” the muscled woman said with a smile. “Didn’t have anyone to save me from the bullies anymore.”

Sam smiled back at her. “You never really needed me to save you.”

“Maybe not after the first time. So, those are the people you left with? You’ve been with them all these years?” she asked of Cal and the rest of the crew.

“Yeah. I guess Mom told you?”

“She tried,” Cara said with a sigh. “I wasn’t really ready to listen, though.”

Sam frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You just left, Sam. Without even explaining or saying goodbye,” the dark-haired woman said sadly, turning away from her to look back over the void beyond the railing. “I know you didn’t have much of a choice in the matter, but...I didn’t really want to know anything about who you went with after that.”

The Jedi hung her head. “I was always going to come back....”

Cara let out a dry laugh. “So much for that plan, huh?”

She looked back at Sam, who matched her laugh and shook her head. It wasn’t funny, but the only way they could bear it was to pretend that it was.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you myself,” Sam said. “If I could go back and try to change anything about my life, that would be number one on the list.”

She looked Cara in the eyes, trying to apologize with her own, and was overcome with memories of long days and nights spent lost in those very eyes. She’d loved to watch them sparkle as she laughed, see them light up when she told an exciting story. It seemed most of the light and sparkle had gone out of them between then and now, unsurprisingly. The thought saddened Sam immensely.

But the fact that those eyes were here at all was something to celebrate, not be sad about.

“How are you here?” Sam asked breathlessly. “How are you still....alive?”

“Well, I’m hard to kill,” Cara said with a grin.

“Not what I meant.”

“I know,” she said, looking away again. “I left home not long after you did. There was nothing there for me after that, you know? Gave me an excuse to finally go out and join the cause. I was in training with the Alliance when....” Sam nodded, not requiring the end of that sentence to know where it was going. But Cara continued softly. “Ten years...Can you believe that?”

“No,” Sam said honestly. “After it happened there were so many times that I didn’t even think I could make it through the next ten minutes.”

“Me too...” Cara agreed with a faraway look.

“So, how did you?” the Jedi asked, and over the next couple of hours the two of them filled each other in on what their lives had been like since the destruction of their homeworld. As they spoke, the nervous pit in Sam’s stomach faded, giving way to the familiar light feeling she’d always felt in Cara’s presence back on Alderaan. It was almost as if neither of them had ever left.

Eventually they found themselves sitting on the ground beneath the railing, laughing at each other’s stories as their feet dangled over the edge of the permacrete floor. At a lull in the conversation, Cara looked down at their feet and chuckled to herself.

“This reminds me of the first time we kissed,” she said. “Remember? In the tree?”

Sam smiled widely. Of course she remembered. It was a moment that still played vividly in her mind even all these years later. Cara had come to the restaurant that night to keep her best friend company as the crowd had waned, then stayed to help her close up. They did the nightly chores together while soft music played, and somewhere along the way ended up dancing, first as a joke, then for real. They’d held each other and swayed even after the music ended. Sam walked her home later under the bright Alderaan moon, and gave in when Cara dared her to climb the tallest tree behind her house, under the condition that she did as well. They made it up safely and sat side by side on the thickest branch, surrounded by leaves and moonlight and the magic of each other’s company. If Sam concentrated, she could still hear the music from that night, could still feel the cool breeze that had rustled the leaves and Cara’s hair as she’d laid her head on her shoulder.

“How could I forget?” she said with a laugh. “I was so nervous I thought I was going to fall and break my legs.”

“Really? You didn’t seem nervous.”

Sam laughed harder. “Cara, I completely missed on the first try, I kissed your chin!”

Cara joined her in laughter as she remembered that detail, then rested her head on her shoulder just as it had been that night. “Well, you got it right eventually.”

“Glad to hear that,” Sam said with a chuckle.

“Why were you so nervous?”

“Because,” she said vaguely, looking down at their feet. “You were my best friend. And if I kissed you and you didn’t like it, then...I might have lost my best friend...”

“What, you couldn’t read my mind back then?” Cara teased, having been told about all her new Jedi tricks and skills. “Couldn’t sense that I wanted you to?”

Sam looked back up and laughed again. “I wasn’t as in touch with that skill back then as I am now.”

“So what is my mind telling you I want now?” Cara lifted her head to look Sam in the eyes. The light was back in her own.

The Jedi shook her head. “I don’t really do that to people I know.”

“What if I’m telling you you’re allowed to? Just this once.”

Before she could think too hard about what she was doing, before she could stop herself, Sam closed her eyes and concentrated on Cara’s mind, reaching back with the Force to find the memory of that night in the tree. She felt what her best friend had been feeling that night, the same nervous excitement she’d felt herself. Then she focused on the moment they were in and felt the same thing. She felt her want to be kissed again, even if it was just this once.

When Sam opened her eyes, Cara’s face was within inches of her own, her eyes on her lips. She moved ever so slowly to close the gap, her eyes fluttering closed again as they leaned into each other.

But a voice from behind stopped them just before their lips touched. “Sam.”

Startled but unmoving, Sam sighed. “Yes, Merrin?”

“Cal would like you back on the ship now,” the Nightsister said. “And your friend as well.”

“We’ll be right there,” she said with a shake of her head and Merrin disappeared again. She shrugged. “Duty calls.”

“Well, at least I get a warning this time,” Cara said, still just an inch away.

Sam rolled her eyes then closed the gap of the last inch, planting a brief kiss on her chin before standing up.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was planning to save this one until Monday but it was a long week so happy Friday!

Cara Dune had never expected to see her best friend again.

For 11 years she’d assumed that even if Sam was somehow still alive out there somewhere, the galaxy was too big for their paths to ever cross again. For 11 years she’d tried to let go of the memories of the only person who’d ever really known her. For 11 years she’d told herself she didn’t care if she ever did see her again anyway, not after she’d left without saying goodbye.

But the galaxy must not have been as big as she thought, and Cara definitely wasn’t as over it as she thought.

It had been pure chance that she and Mando had landed on Coruscant in the first place. They certainly didn’t mean to stop there on their way back to Nevarro from some backwater planet or another. And if he’d only gotten the _Razor Crest_ fixed by someone who actually knew what they were doing instead of trying to do it himself (like she told him, for the record), they wouldn’t have had to stop on the core world at all.

So, needless to say, she wasn’t even a little bit prepared for all the feelings that came up when her long lost friend had turned up on the other end of her blaster. And she was only slightly less confused by the time their conversation at the railing ended and they went back to Sam’s ship. They’d caught up and re-lived a few memories, sure, but what now? That was all to do with the past, and they’d just been kids then. At present, she wasn’t even confident she knew exactly what Sam was now, much less what it meant for them.

All she did know was that no one in her life had ever made her as happy as Sam had, no one had ever made her feel the way she did that night in the tree.

Sam was taken aside by her red-headed master as soon as they made it back to the cargo ship, and Mando pulled Cara out of earshot as well.

“Please don’t leave us alone with these people again,” he said, holding the kid protectively.

“That bad?”

“I’m not convinced that Latero doesn’t want to cook him and eat him.”

“You’re being paranoid,” she said, then looked at the child closely. “I bet he would be pretty tasty, though.”

Mando turned around so the baby was out of her reach. “That’s not funny.”

Cara thought it was, but she decided teasing him further wouldn’t be smart. “So? What are you gonna do?”

“Until I’m sure he won’t be food, nothing.”

She rolled her eyes. “Okay seriously, you need to chill. They’re not going to eat him.”

“How do you know?”

“Mando. You’re just making an excuse so you don’t have to leave him,” she pointed out, accurately. “Which you don’t have to do if you don’t want to, they already told you that.”

She could hear him sigh beneath the beskar helm as he looked down at the kid. “This is The Way,” he recited.

“Is there really no wiggle room there? You Mandalorians and your rules...” Cara said, shaking her head. His Way and the little rules that went along with it had gotten on her nerves plenty over their time traveling together, but she’d never directly complained about it. Nor had she made it known that she believed he couldn’t leave the kid alone with the Jedi even if they found them, even if he wanted to.

Just as she began to think it might be time to voice that opinion, he turned back to her.

“You know the younger one?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she confirmed. “We were....friends. We grew up together.”

“And you trust her?”

Cara didn’t answer right away. Back on Alderaan, she had trusted Sam more than anyone -- with her life, with her secrets, with her heart. But before that day, the last thing she’d done was betray that trust. She’d left without a word, taking Cara’s heart with her. _But that wasn’t her fault_ , she told herself, knowing that Sam absolutely would have told her where she was going if she’d had the chance.

“I do,” she finally said.

Mando studied her face, which was uncharacteristically conflicted. But he trusted her judgement.

“Good.”

~

It had taken all of Sam’s focus to calm her racing mind and heart as she reported back to the _Mantis_ from her conversation with Cara. She couldn’t have her master knowing what had just gone on, and he was bound to if she couldn’t clear her head before she got there.

Luckily for her, Cal’s mind was already on other matters by the time he pulled her aside as she got back on the ship.

“We’ve got new cargo to load up tomorrow for Cantonica,” he informed her. “We’ll be leaving at 0800.”

“Wait, what? What about the kid, the-the...Yoda baby?” she asked, caught off-guard by the news of a quick turnaround in light of their potential new pickup. It was too quick for her liking. She’d only gotten a couple of hours with her long-lost friend. That wasn’t nearly enough. But she knew better than to say so.

Cal looked over to where the Mandalorian was holding the child protectively as he spoke to Cara, and Sam’s eyes followed his gaze. “His....father...doesn’t seem to be willing to part with him.”

“Well, can you blame him?” she asked. Cara had told her a quick version of how the three of them had come to be traveling together, and she sensed that the Mandalorian had filled Cal and Cere in on the same.

“No. As much as I’d like to be able to see what this child is capable of,” her master said with a sigh, “I don’t think we’re going to get that chance.”

Sam looked over again to where Cara and the Mandalorian were speaking. She tried not to read his mind, but it was practically screaming at her. A grin crept across her face when she realized what it was saying.

“Maybe there’s a way,” she told Cal, before inviting him, Cere, and the visitors on the _Mantis_ to join her in the common area.

When they were all gathered together, she stood in the middle of the room and rubbed her hands together.

“I have a proposal,” she said. “One where everybody here, I think, gets what they want out of this situation.”

Sam was pretty confident in that statement for three of the four people she was speaking to, but ironically she had no idea what Cara wanted.

“Go on then,” Cere told her. “Not all of us can read minds so easily.”

“So, we,” Sam began, gesturing to herself and the other two Jedi, “want to see this child’s abilities with the Force, right? We want to teach him and train him -- when he’s old enough -- and, of course, keep him safe from whatever remnants might still be looking for him.”

“Uh huh...” said Cal, somewhat impatiently.

“And you,” she continued, to the Mandalorian, “also want to keep him safe, and follow through with your mission, right? But you also don’t want to leave him with a bunch of strangers, which, let’s be honest....we definitely are.”

He didn’t say anything in response, but she knew it was true from what she’d heard in his head.

“So what if we compromise?” Sam suggested, to blank looks. “I mean, what if we...we team up? If the three of you join our crew, we’d be able to train the kid, you’d still get to stay with him, and we’d all be able to protect each other from Imps or whoever else might be a problem.”

_And_ , she thought, _this reunion with Cara wouldn’t have to end quite so soon_.

The adults all sat silently with her suggestion for a moment, looking to each other for reactions. Only the child in question seemed ready to voice an opinion. And if his excited babbling was any indication, he was in favor.

“Okay, so that’s one yes,” Sam said, counting the vote off on a finger.

“Well, we don’t typically take the guardians onboard with the children,” Cere mused, “but in this case, I think an exception might be in order.”

“I agree,” said Cal, rubbing the reddish-gray stubble on his chin thoughtfully. “Traveling all together would be the safest thing for everyone if there are still people after him.”

Sam put up two more fingers for yes votes as she turned to Cara and the Mandalorian, the latter of whom was so still he might as well have been asleep under that helmet. Cara locked eyes with her for a long moment before shrugging.

“I go where they go,” she said.

All eyes landed on the masked man then, including those of the child in his lap. Its huge ears pointed up expectantly as it cooed at him. Sam sensed him make his decision a second before he finally nodded.

“Okay. We’re in,” he said, and the baby squealed with delight.

~

The new and improved _Mantis_ crew didn’t quite make its planned 0800 departure the next morning, as Mando got held up trying to haggle over a price for long-term storage of his own ship (which he was unwilling to sell, just in case this didn’t work out), but before long they were leaving Coruscant and headed for Cantonica.

Sam and Cara hadn’t gotten the chance to talk much more after the big decision was made, so as soon as Greez made the jump to lightspeed, the Jedi went right off in search of the person she was most happy to have on the ship. She found her in her new bunk, setting out her limited belongings in the tiny living space.

“Pretty cozy, huh?” she said, leaning in the doorway with her arms crossed casually.

“Honestly? It’s not as bad as the _Crest_ ,” Cara admitted.

“That’s a scary thought. Just be glad you’re not right next to Greez,” Sam advised. “Guy snores louder than a sub-light engine. Which is why we moved him to the bunk closest to the sub-light engines. Just, you know, keep all that noise in one place.”

“Yeah, at this point I’m more concerned about the witch that keeps popping up out of absolutely nowhere?” Cara said with a raise of an eyebrow, and the Jedi laughed.

“I wish I could say you’ll get used to that. But don’t worry, she won’t come in here without an invitation.”

“I see. And what about you?”

“Me?”

“Are you gonna come in here?”

“Is that me getting an invitation?”

“Maybe,” Cara said, sitting down on the bed and motioning for Sam to sit next to her. The Jedi hesitated for a moment, but went in and sat all the same, then used the Force to close the door behind her. “So, this whole compromise thing, this team-up...that’s not just about us, right? It’s not just a way for us to spend more time together?”

Sam was caught off-guard by her direct interrogation. “No,” she said firmly, then wavered. “No, it’s not....just about that.”

Cara sighed. “Sam...”

“Only 10 percent about that, at most.”

“Sam.”

“Okay, 20 percent,” Sam conceded, trying to play it humorously, but Cara wasn’t laughing. “You’re mad?”

The mercenary sighed again. “No. But you can’t make decisions that affect other people just because it might be good for us.”

“I didn’t decide anything, I just made a suggestion -- a mutually beneficial suggestion,” Sam said in her defense. But she had to admit that despite her previous joking tone, the amount that her desire to keep them together had factored into the suggestion was probably higher than it should have been. “And what did you expect me to do, Cara? I mean, for 10 years I’ve thought you were dead. I thought I’d lost you, forever. I can’t just get you back in my life again for one night and then send you off with an ‘Okay, see ya later!’ I just can’t do that...”

She hung her head. She should have been able to do that. A better Jedi would have been able to, would have been able to let go long before now so it wouldn’t have even been an issue. But Sam had always been weak where matters of Alderaanian origin were concerned. And this one topped all the rest.

“Neither can I,” Cara said softly.

Sam looked back up at her with a half-smile. “Then I guess it’s a good thing everybody liked my plan, huh?”

“I guess so.”

They stared longingly at each other, as if they were both wishing they could just erase the last 11 years altogether and start over. But they knew that wasn’t possible. So much was different now, so much had been lost. Even if they could pick up where they’d left off -- which they couldn’t -- who was to say it would even work after everything they’d been through?

That question didn’t matter, though, Sam tried to tell herself. She was a Jedi, and even considering being with Cara again in that way was probably against the Jedi code.

“You know that we can’t....” she started to say, but trailed off when she couldn’t find the right words.

“Can’t what?” Cara pressed.

Sam sighed. “We can’t...be what we were. It’s different now. We can’t go back.”

Cara looked down at the edge of the bed, where their hands were side by side between them, so close to touching but not quite there. “Yeah,” she said, trying not to sound sad. “I know. Neither of us are the same people we were back then.”

That was quite an understatement, the Jedi thought as her eyes followed Cara’s gaze to their hands. They’d both seen and done things they never would have imagined back on Alderaan. They’d lost their home planet and countless other friends and comrades along the way. But they’d both grown as well, become stronger, better people despite all of the hardship.

Sam looked up from their hands as she covered Cara’s with her own. “Maybe that’s a good thing.”

Cara turned her hand over so they were now clasped together. “I don’t know...Kinda liked who we were before.”

“So did I.” Sam’s heart raced as they sat there, hands intertwined. She thought about the previous night, how they’d been an instant away from recreating their first kiss before being interrupted. Cara’s mind had all but asked for it and she’d been ready and willing to give her what she wanted. She realized she was still willing to give her what she wanted, despite what she’d said only a moment earlier. _Just this once_. “I liked you especially.”

She unclasped their hands and brought hers up to gently brush the hair away from Cara’s left eye before leaning in to kiss her. It was slow and sweet, innocent and tender, just as it had been that first time in the tree. Sam wanted to make it last forever, both the kiss and the feeling it gave her. 

But soon Cara pulled away, resting her hand on Sam’s chest and her forehead against her shoulder.

“I thought you said we couldn’t.”

“We can’t,” the Jedi confirmed sadly, holding the hand on her chest for a moment before standing to leave. “But I owed you one.”

And she hoped, with all her heart, that one would be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The pace picks up after this one, I promise. As always, feel free to holler at me on tumblr, @chippingthegoalkeeper.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Cara make discoveries of various importance.

It didn’t require Sam’s powers of telepathy to tell that Cara was very bored on Bogano after just a week.

The Jedi should have seen that coming. Everyone got bored on Bogano after about a week -- there wasn’t much to see or do. But it seemed especially hard on the mercenary. The last decade of her life had been consumed by action and violence and far more interesting things than the monotony of life on the tiny Jedi settlement.

So Sam did all she could to try to entertain her when she had free time, and even when she didn’t. Whether she was practicing lightsaber techniques against a training droid or just reading through old scrolls of writing left behind by Master Eno Cordova for the hundredth time, Cara seemed interested in whatever the Jedi was doing, so Sam always invited her to watch and participate where she could. It was odd at first, teaching a non-Jedi about the Force and how they used it, but she found she enjoyed finally getting to fill her in on what she’d been up to all these years.

And at least Cara was a captive audience, unlike the child she was supposed to have been training. He may have been 50 years old, according to Mando, and incredibly strong with the Force, but the little one wasn’t developed enough to truly be “trained” yet. Sam wondered if he even would be in their lifetimes at this rate, but Cal insisted that they try as best they could to guide him where possible.

Thus far, that had only taken the form of studying his habits and abilities, which she was doing with Cara’s help one morning out on the Binog Mesa. They watched him interact adorably with a bushy-tailed bogling, the only creature Sam could remember seeing that had a more wide-eyed countenance than the child himself.

Before long though, the bogling grew tired of such direct attention and bounded away abruptly, leaving the child spurned. Visibly upset, he toddled over to where the humans were seated on the ground and reached out for Cara to comfort him.

Sam looked on with amusement. “He really likes you, huh?”

The mercenary snorted as she picked him up. “Hasn’t always. Little womp rat tried to kill me once.”

“Are you serious? How?” the Jedi asked, gaping in confusion at the little green alien. “Why?”

“Why, I don’t know. But it almost choked me to death. From across the room.” At that, Sam’s head jerked up to look at her worriedly. “What?”

“It Force-choked you?” Sam asked, though she knew Cara wouldn’t know the term.

“What, is that a common Jedi thing?”

“No, it’s...it’s not a Jedi thing at all really,” she said, growing more and more concerned by the second. “In fact kind of the opposite.”

“What does that mean? He’s not a Jedi after all?”

“I don’t know....but that’s a power of the Dark Side. He shouldn’t have the ability to do that,” she said, standing to pick up the child and study him closely. “It’s very concerning that he does.”

“Yeah you’re tellin’ me,” Cara said, absentmindedly rubbing her throat as she stood as well. “Wait, the Dark Side of what now?”

Sam explained that the Dark Side of the Force was wielded by the Sith, the true enemy of the Jedi, who used it in the pursuit of power, among other evil deeds. She paused thoughtfully. “You said you don’t know why he did it?”

“No. One second I was beating Mando at arm-wrestling and the next...” She made a choking sound, which Sam found more disturbing than helpful.

“And you’d never done anything to threaten him?” Cara shook her head no. “We’ve gotta go tell Cal and Cere.”

They took off with the child onto the ship, where the older two Jedi were studying readouts on the holotable, looking for work along with the Mandalorian.

“I think we’ve got something a lot bigger on our hands than just another youngling,” Sam announced, then nodded to Cara. “Tell them.”

The ex-shock trooper relayed what she’d just told her friend.

“You’re right Sam, that’s....very disconcerting,” Cere said distantly as she studied the little one, just as Sam had.

Cal turned to Mando. “You don’t think you should have told us about this before?”

“I didn’t know the significance. I only believed he was trying to protect me. Like against the mudhorn,” the masked man said defensively. “There was no malice in it.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” said the old Jedi woman.

“Oh come on. Look at that thing,” Cara said, gesturing to the child, who’d taken control of Sam’s gloved hand and was nibbling adorably on her exposed index finger. “It’s not evil.”

“We can’t assume anything,” Cal said, running a distressed hand through his shaggy red hair before getting an idea. “Maybe it would help if we knew more about his species. Scan him, BD.”

His little droid hopped over and did as ordered, then beeped sadly.

“What do you mean, ‘nothing’?” Sam asked it. “There’s got to be some kind of data on them.”

“Try it again, buddy,” Cal said to the droid.

BD-1 tried it again, but only came up with readings of the child’s vitals. He trilled apologetically before returning to Cal’s shoulder.

“Why don’t you just read his mind?” the Mandalorian asked Sam, who had apparently forgotten her own special power.

“Oh. Well, I....Cal?” she asked, seeking permission from her master. After a moment of consideration he shrugged as if to say _Go for it_. She sat the child on the table and stared at him, then closed her eyes and focused on trying to hear his thoughts, to sense his intentions. It wasn’t easy. It was as if there was an impenetrable fog she couldn’t see past. “I don’t think it has any ill will. But its mind is...hard to breach. I’ve never felt such resistance. It almost doesn’t seem like he’s resisting on purpose, though.”

The adults all looked on with concerned faces as the child babbled and attempted to play with the holographic planets on the table.

“Before we can even think about training this little guy,” Cere said, “we have to figure out what he is and where he came from.”

“And why the Empire wanted him,” Cal added.

“Exactly. And in the meantime, I don’t think he should leave this planet.”

Mando tilted his helmet questioningly. “How do you expect to find anything out about him without leaving?”

“We’ll have to leave one or two of us here with him while others go,” the old woman answered. “At least one Jedi with him at all times. Smaller teams to go on shipping runs and search for answers.”

They all nodded their agreement, quietly wondering just what in the galaxy they’d all gotten themselves into.

~

Cal and Cere took the first off-world shift, leaving the following day for a pickup on Felucia. The group didn’t necessarily need credits or supplies at the moment, but they planned to use the shipping run as an excuse to make a stop on the old Jedi world of Ossus, where they thought was as good a place as any to start their search for answers on the child.

Greez and Merrin had gone along with them, leaving Sam, Cara, Mando, and the child behind on Bogano. It was the first time Sam could remember since joining the crew that she was separated from all of them. As odd a group as they were, and as much as they bickered at times, they were without a doubt a family, or at least as close to one as she ever expected to have again. And being apart from them certainly felt strange.

Almost equally strange was realizing how much of a family the three she’d been left with were. The bond between Mando, Cara, and the child had quite literally been forged in fire, and Sam felt almost like she was intruding on _their_ home once it was just the four of them left at the Jedi base.

Luckily Cara picked up on that quickly, and to take her mind off it made Sam take her exploring past the edges of the small area of Bogano they’d been inhabiting. It wasn’t an easy planet to get around on, what with its bottomless canyons and sinkholes waiting to gobble up anyone less than completely sure-footed, but that just made it all the more fun to investigate.

Eventually they made it to more even ground and stumbled upon a river, where they stopped and sat after refilling their canteens.

“Are we sure this planet is safe?” Cara asked abruptly as they watched the crystal clear water rush by. “I thought the whole reason we teamed up was for more protection. Now we’re going to be split up all the time?”

“Well, in the 11 years I’ve been coming here I’ve yet to see a sentient we didn’t bring ourselves,” Sam said of the unpopulated world. “But Cal and Cere did say the Empire has been here before, so I guess it’s not totally outside the realm of possibility for someone to find us.”

“Very reassuring.”

“What, you don’t think we can take ‘em?” Sam teased. “You and Mando with your big guns and me with my laser sword?”

She whipped out her lightsaber with a flourish, activating the buzzing blue blade. Cara just stared at her, unimpressed.

“How many people have you actually fought with that thing?” she asked.

“Saber on saber?” Sam mumbled as if doing the math before actually answering, “Two. No, three. If you count Cal.”

The former shock trooper rolled her eyes. “And to think I always thought you were the fighter of the two of us.”

The Jedi laughed and deactivated the lightsaber. “Hey, it’s not my fault ol' Master Kestis keeps me on a short leash. Besides, I don’t need this thing to be good in a fight.”

“I’m sure,” Cara agreed sarcastically. “‘Master Kestis.’ That’s so weird.”

Sam nodded in agreement. “Yeah, never quite got used to that.”

“Does he like, have a different poncho for ev--”

“Yes,” Sam answered before she finished the question and Cara laughed. “I’m only slightly exaggerating to say I’ve rarely seen the same one twice since I became his padawan.”

“His pada-what?”

“Basically his apprentice,” she explained. “Just the fancy Jedi word for it.”

“Oh. Have you ever had a....padamon?”

“Pada _wan_ ,” Sam corrected with a chuckle. “And no.”

“Why not?”

“Well for one thing, I haven’t been a full Jedi myself for that long,” she said, then sighed. “But even now, I’m not sure I ever will have one.”

“Why not?” Cara repeated.

Sam shrugged. “Not sure Cal and Cere would trust me with a youngling. I’m not exactly the best role model when it comes to being a Jedi.”

“How so?”

_For starters, there’s you_ , she thought but didn’t say. “Let’s just say I’m...not as disciplined as I should be. Among other things.”

It wasn’t that Sam disliked her life as a Jedi or was at all ungrateful for Cal and Cere’s teachings, but even after 11 years she still wondered at times if she was in the right place, if she’d made the right decision the day the stormtroopers came back for her on Alderaan. Of course, it was the only reason she was still alive now, but aside from that it was hard to know for sure. Having the Force as her ally was a wonderful thing, Sam conceded, and she knew she wouldn’t want to be without it, without that power to wield it.

But all the sacrifices that came along with being a Jedi, all the responsibility attached? She wasn’t sure she needed or wanted it bad enough to deal with those forever. Giving up all attachment and passion, having to live so much of her life on this planet with no people, none of it was what Sam had had in mind when dreaming of her grand adventure all those years ago. And the recent reunion with a certain someone had only done the opposite of quelling those doubts.

“Well, you can always set a good example of what not to do,” Cara teased, pulling her from her thoughts.

Sam looked up to see her standing again with a playful grin on her face. “Why do I get the feeling that’s what you do with the little one back there?”

The mercenary finished a long drink of her water, then belched loudly. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

“Wow.”

“Oh, don’t act like you’re not impressed.”

Cara took off along the river again and Sam had to rush to catch up. They walked along, chatting easily for such a long time the Jedi wasn’t sure they’d be able to make it back to their base before dark. But as they rounded a cliff at a bend in the river and their eyes landed on a huge, beautiful waterfall, that worry melted away completely.

The waterfall must have been more than a hundred feet high and half as wide across. The river rushed powerfully over the edge and sprayed up in a pool at the bottom, where beams of light from the setting Bogano suns shone through to create two shimmering rainbows.

Sam was staring in awe at it but Cara’s eyes were already surveying the rocky cliff just beside it, and the wide ledge about halfway up.

“Oh, we can definitely climb to that,” she said. Sam took one look at the steep cliffside and shot her a look to suggest she was crazy. “If you move a few rocks around.”

The Jedi shook her head as she watched her friend start off toward it. “Always the climbing with you.”

“You’re not complaining, are you?” Cara asked with a grin. “You know you like what happens when we get to the top.”

Sam bit her lip to contain her smile. “Not this time, Cara Dune.”

As much as she might have wanted to, she couldn’t let her feelings for Cara take over her. She had to keep her word that they couldn’t be what they had been. They had to just be friends. It was her duty to make sure they just stayed friends.

“Right, yeah. Sorry,” Cara said with a dismissive wave. “So, you gonna move those rocks or what?”

Never one to back down from a challenge, especially coming from her best friend, Sam did indeed use the Force to push and pull the boulders around for maximum climb-ability. When they finally made their way up to the ledge and looked back out at the view, she was glad Cara had made the suggestion. Bogano may have been lacking in civilization and manufactured entertainment, but its landscape had a tendency to captivate. And the views of and from the waterfall were downright breathtaking.

They took it all in silently for a while before the rush of the falling water was replaced by a different but familiar sound in Sam’s ears, one she’d finally learned 11 years ago was the Force speaking to her. She looked around, trying to figure out what it was saying, searching for an anomaly. Turning around toward the cliff, she noticed a large boulder seemed to have been lodged into an opening in it.

“Huh.”

“What?” Cara asked, turning around to see what was more interesting than the view.

“Not sure,” Sam said. “Stand back.”

Directing Cara behind her, she concentrated on the Force flowing through the boulder. She used it to pull the rock out of its space and off to the side of the ledge, revealing, as expected, an entry into the side of the cliff.

“Huh,” the mercenary echoed. “A cave?”

Sam shrugged. “Let’s find out.” She activated her lightsaber and held it in front of her as they entered, illuminating the narrow passageway that shortly brought them to another opening behind the waterfall itself. That alone was beautiful and unexpected, but Sam was equally shocked to find, at the back of the expansive cave, evidence that someone had been there before. There were stones set roughly in the shape of a table and seat, and a ring of rocks that looked to have been a fire pit. Sam brought her lightsaber closer and saw drawings on the wall, nearly identical to ones she’d seen around their settlement. “Guess we’re not the first ones that found this place.”

“Guess not,” Cara agreed. “What do you think they used it for?”

The Jedi wandered back to the mouth of the cave next to her, feeling the mist of the waterfall sprinkle her face. It was cool and refreshing, the sound of the rushing water relaxing. She smiled. “A peaceful getaway, I’d say.”

“I like the sound of that,” Cara said, matching her smile. They stood in silence for a moment, taking it all in, before she asked, “Do you think Cal knows about it?”

Sam shook her head. “No. I don’t sense his presence here at all. Or Cere’s. I don’t think anyone’s been here for generations, maybe centuries.”

“Good.”

She looked at Cara with suspicion. “Why good?”

The shorter woman shrugged. “Just like the idea of us having a place all to ourselves.”

She smiled again and Sam felt her knees go weak. She tried not to let it show. “Well I’m glad you do because I think we might just be stuck here for the night. By the time we’d get down it’ll be too dark to try to go back.”

Traversing the gaps around their camp was dangerous enough under the light of two suns. It would be downright suicidal to try after darkness had fallen.

“I guess there are worse places to spend the night,” Cara said, having spent many nights in much worse places indeed.

Halfway through the night, however, it became clear that the cool, dark cave was still far from a good place to try to sleep. The whole planet was significantly colder in the absence of the suns, and the cave seemed to intensify that cold with its proximity to the waterfall. Already uncomfortable due to the rocky surface they were attempting to sleep on, Cara was wide awake when Sam’s audible shivers started. It began as soft gasps as the Jedi slept, but soon enough her whole body was shuddering, teeth chattering while she fought to stay asleep.

“Sam...Sammy,” Cara said, moving nearer to her friend to try to wake her and suggest they at least leave and try to build a fire at ground level. But she wouldn’t be roused, continuing to shiver and shake as she slept on. The mercenary shook her head, remembering how Sam had somehow been able to sleep through hours of loud nighttime activity at her mother’s restaurant just a floor below her own bedroom. “You always could sleep through anything.”

Cara knew she wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep herself if the Jedi’s noisy shivers continued. So, despite a voice in her head telling her she probably shouldn’t, she moved to press her body against Sam’s and cover her with her arm. They still fit together perfectly, and she could feel her friend instantly relax under her touch. Before long the shivering abated altogether and they were both sleeping peacefully to the soothing sound of the waterfall.

Sam woke up incredibly confused, and desperately needing to pee, hours later. She’d been dreaming vividly of swimming through the icy waters of the caves on Ilum, where years ago she’d collected the kyber crystal for her lightsaber. But sometime in the night the dream had abruptly switched to one of her youth on Alderaan, one of Cara and herself spending a warm summer afternoon just laying around and talking beneath the very tree they’d eventually climb together.

As she woke up enough to remember where she was, she was quite surprised to find herself wrapped in Cara’s arms, held tightly to her warm body. _Well, that explains the dreams_. She would have been perfectly content to stay there and pretend to still be sleeping until the other woman woke up, but the consistent rush of the waterfall only made the need to pee more urgent. Sam squirmed awkwardly, trying to move out of Cara’s grasp without waking her, but her friend had always been a light sleeper.

“Kriff, sorry,” she said when Cara began to wake up, still hanging on protectively to the Jedi’s body. Sam turned around in her arms to face her. “Hi.”

“Hi,” the mercenary said sleepily, slowly getting her bearings.

“You get cold or somethin’?” Sam asked with a smirk.

Even half-asleep and too close for it to work, Cara landed a strong punch to her arm. “Couldn’t sleep with you over here shivering all night. Had to do something to shut you up.”

“Well thanks for not letting me freeze to death I guess,” the Jedi said. “Kinda need you to let go now though.”

She obliged, half-offended. “Taking that Jedi Code very seriously, huh?”

Sam just chuckled as she reluctantly stood up. “Just gotta pee, actually.”

“Well what are you waiting for? Get out of my cave!” Cara shooed her away, and Sam left with a smile, wishing it really was the only reason she had to get out of there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit's about to get real now.

“Nothing again? Seriously?”

Even from her perch outside the old hermit’s abode, Cara could hear Sam’s frustrated laments over the lack of new information on the child, as relayed to her by Cal and Cere on a holo-call inside. So far each of the calls had gone in much the same way -- none of the group’s trips over the past several months had turned up anything. Cara didn’t find that terribly surprising. She and Mando had been having the same luck for even longer before one incredibly serendipitous day on Coruscant had brought them all together.

Whoever -- or whatever -- this kid was, she suspected someone out there had gone to great lengths to keep his identity a secret.

“Patience, Sam,” she heard Cal advise his apprentice calmly. “This is still just the start of a long journey, I suspect.”

“Cal’s right,” Cere agreed. “And we’ve only tried a few places. Eventually something will yield results.”

“And if it doesn’t?” Sam said, and Cara didn’t need to see her to know she was probably rubbing the back of her neck like she usually did when feeling impatient or stressed out. She’d been doing that a lot lately.

“Just trust in the Force, Sam,” Cal said. “That’s all we can do.”

“Yes, Master.”

“How are things going there? Haven’t had any more incidents, have we?”

Cara couldn’t help but laugh out loud from her spot outside. Her friend had gotten quite an intense lecture after Cal had heard about the day several shifts ago when the child had used the Force to take her lightsaber from her belt and wave it around while activated. She could laugh now, but it had been infinitely more terrifying than funny at the time, as Sam had frantically tried and failed to take it back from him. It wasn’t until Mando was able to distract him with another favorite toy that he finally gave it up and they could all take a breath.

“No, I’ve been keeping it locked up when I’m not using it,” Sam answered in reference to her Jedi weapon.

“Good,” Cere said. “How are you on supplies? We’re thinking of just going on to the next location from here. It’s only a parsec away.”

Cara’s attention drifted away as Sam assured the other Jedi that they’d be fine to stay away a little longer, then wrapped up the call. Afterward she came out and sat down next to her, matching her gaze to the nearest mesa where Merrin was keeping the child entertained.

“Hey,” Cara said. “So I hear we’re on our own for a bit longer?”

“Yep. That cool with you?”

“No way. You know me, I say the more the merrier,” the mercenary joked.

“Okay, I’ll just call ‘em back up, tell them you miss ‘em,” Sam said, standing up to commit to the bit.

Cara pulled her back down by the arm. “Don’t even think about it, laser brain.”

In reality, she was enjoying the time on Bogano with just Sam, Merrin, and the kid much more than the usual full crowd. The other Jedi made her nervous, and if they wanted to keep exploring the galaxy indefinitely, she wouldn’t complain. Although she suspected Mando would want to come back before too long. But for now, Cara was content with the arrangement at least. The kid was behaving reasonably well, considering his father was away with the Jedi this time. She found the Nightsister fascinating, between her accent, her odd sense of humor, and the way she seemed to love scaring the crap out of Sam by popping up out of nowhere. And of course, she was enjoying more downtime with her best friend. Even if that was costing her some sleepless nights.

It would have been confusing enough working out her old feelings for Sam in the present if her friend wasn’t a mind-reading member of a mysterious order of not-sorcerers. But she was, and that added a whole additional layer (or five) of uncertainty. They’d been catching up and bonding again, having fun just being in each other’s presence without the watchful eyes of the elder Jedi around. If Cara didn’t know any better, she might have thought they were back on the road they’d been on more than a decade ago, but every time she began to think so Sam would once again reiterate her devotion to her code.

So she had decided just to keep doing what she’d been doing for the last ten years, and take it all one day at a time.

“What’ve you been thinking about out here?” Sam asked suddenly, and Cara raised an eyebrow at her.

“Couldn’t you find that out on your own?”

“Well, yeah. Makes for a more interesting conversation if you tell me, though,” the Jedi said, nudging her with her elbow. “Plus I told you I won’t do that, remember?”

_Might be easier for me if you would_ , Cara thought. But if Sam heard that suggestion, she didn’t let on. “I was just....thinking about how nice it is here…”

Sam looked at her skeptically. “No you weren’t.”

“Didn’t you just say you weren’t gonna read my mind?”

“I don’t have to read your mind to know when you’re lying, Cara,” she smirked, then put on a more serious face. “Come on. What’s up?”

“I’m just...confused, is all,” Cara said cryptically. Ever since their kiss on her first night with the crew, navigating her friend’s moods had been as tricky as getting around on the treacherous Bogano landscape. One minute Sam would be looking at her with those affectionate gray eyes of hers, like they were right back on Alderaan with their whole lives ahead of them. The next minute she was almost as closed off as Mando, and just as dedicated to some creed that prevented real human connection. It was impossible for Cara to pin down her own feelings when Sam’s seemed to be so all over the place.

Before she could tell her all of that, however, Merrin appeared next to them in a flash of green light, the child fussing noisily in her arms. She held the baby out to Sam.

“It’s your turn.” The Nightsister practically shoved him into the Jedi’s own grasp. “I believe he is hungry.”

“But we were just tal--” Sam’s protest was drowned out by a wail from the child’s mouth, at which point she sighed in resignation and got up to go find him something to eat.

Cara just shook her head, glad it wasn’t her turn, as Merrin sat down in Sam’s spot next to her. “If you’d like I can take Sam’s place in the conversation now,” the witch offered.

“Oh. No, it’s...we’ll just talk later.”

“Are you sure? I am a very good listener,” Merrin said. “There was almost no one on my home world with me for many years. Any time I’m able to listen to someone else now, I find it quite enjoyable.”

Cara smiled sadly at her. She’d already heard the story of how Merrin’s fellow Nightsisters had all been murdered during the Clone Wars, but it hadn’t quite dawned on her before how similar that made them. Being one of the last of your people was a lonely life. What choice did Cara have then but to indulge her?

“It’s just....Sam,” she said. “It’s not fair that she’s the only one that can read minds.”

“You would also like to read minds?”

“Well, just hers,” Cara admitted. “Would make things a lot easier.”

“What kind of things?” Merrin asked, but the former shock trooper just squirmed awkwardly where she sat. “Things like your feelings for each other?”

Cara shot her a surprised glance. “What, you can read minds too?”

The Nightsister guffawed. “No, that is Sam’s gift alone. But I’ve observed your behavior around each other. And she did tell me several years ago about the girl from Alderaan she had never been able to put behind her.”

“She told you about me? About...us?” Cara couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. She’d assumed Sam had never spoken about her, especially to the extent that they’d been together.

“She did. After I told her about my Illyana,” Merrin said, then told Cara the story of her own lost love from years ago on Dathomir. It sounded so much like the Aderaanians’ story it was almost spooky. Childhood friends who’d grown to love each other, planned to spend their lives together, then were separated by tragic circumstances they couldn’t control. Only in Merrin’s case, there was no chance at all for a happy resolution. Illyana’s life had been taken along with the rest of their sisters’, just as Sam had long assumed Cara’s had been taken along with the rest of Alderaan.

It was no wonder they’d bonded.

“Did she ever tell Cal and Cere about me?”

“Not specifically, no,” the Nightsister confirmed. “They would never have understood. But it is not their fault for this. The Jedi of their generation were brought into the order so young that they never had a chance to experience what we did. They can never appreciate what it means to lose the one you love the most.”

“Or what it means to have them back,” Sam’s voice cut in from behind them. Cara and Merrin turned around to see her holding the now-sleeping child, the side of her mouth turned up in a smile and adoring eyes focused on the mercenary. “Hey. I think we should talk.”

“Now who’s sneaking up on whom?” Merrin quipped.

~

Sam’s heart fluttered excitedly as she and Cara made their way back to “their” cave, where she’d promised they would talk after leaving the kid with Merrin again.

She hadn’t really meant to eavesdrop on the conversation between Cara and the Nightsister, but voices had a tendency to carry around the cavernous Jedi base. And for once she was glad they did. Hearing Merrin recount her own story again was like having some sense kicked into her. Jedi Code be damned, this was the second chance she’d wanted for years. She couldn’t keep wasting it.

With every day that passed since their reunion it had gotten harder to deny that she still had feelings for Cara. Every job they went on together, every evening they spent watching the suns set, every night around the fire playing familiar melodies on Cere’s seven-stringed hallikset. At the end of each one, Sam was left unable to sleep, eaten up by endless regrets and imagined scenarios of what could have been. Even when she did sleep, her dreams just put her back in the tree on Alderaan or in the cave behind the waterfall. And every morning she woke up disappointed. But no more, she’d decided.

They marched mostly in silence along the river, but Sam couldn’t hold it all in any longer once they reached the waterfall. She took Cara’s hand to stop her before she could start climbing the cliff.

“You started to say earlier that you were confused, and I know that’s my fault. I know I said before that we can’t go back to what we were,” she said, fiddling with the other woman’s fingers nervously, “and...I guess that’s technically still true. I mean, we can’t really go back because our home is gone and we’re so different now and stuff is so complicated and confusing and--“

“Sam. You’re rambling,” Cara said, giving her hand a squeeze. “Get to the point, okay?”

The Jedi looked up from their hands and into her deep brown eyes. She took a calming breath. “Okay. Here’s the point. I love you. And I don’t want to pretend otherwise anymore.”

She smiled warmly, and her gray eyes sparkled in the Bogano suns, matching her silver hair. Cara’s mouth twitched reflexively to smile as well, but Sam could sense she needed more of an explanation before giving in to that impulse. So she continued.

“The last few months I’ve been trying to tell myself I wasn’t really feeling what I knew I was. I’ve been telling myself it was just the leftover feelings from when we were young, but it’s more than that.” Sam had deeply loved the girl she knew on Alderaan, but what she felt for the woman in front of her now was just as strong. She loved the quiet intensity with which she watched Sam train. She loved the sound of her voice as she told stories of her time with the Rebel Alliance. She loved the flecks of gold in her brown eyes that only came to life under the setting Bogano suns. And all of that just scratched the surface. There were a million things to love about her, and Sam would have happily stood there and listed them all if she had to. “I loved you then, I love you now, and I’m gonna love you tomorrow. Loving you, Cara, it’s....it’s a habit I can’t seem to break.”

The moment of silence that followed her admission turned out to be the longest and most difficult period Sam had ever had to endure of trying not to read Cara’s mind. The mercenary’s eyebrows furrowed slightly as she bit her lip in thought.

“What about your Jedi Code?” Cara finally asked. “What about the Force and all of that?”

“The Code is....flawed. And the Force is what brought us back together in the first place,” Sam replied thoughtfully, and as she said the words, it dawned on her that the Force had been trying to tell her just that for years. Maybe the reason she’d never been able to shake Cara from her head while meditating on it because it was always going to lead right back to her. _Trust in the Force_ , Cal had always told her, _that’s all you can do_. “I...I can’t explain how or why, but I know it. This is what it wants. This is where we’re supposed to be.”

The realization was freeing. It lightened Sam’s heart in a way she hadn’t expected. Things would probably -- okay, definitely -- get more complicated from this point forward, but the Force would guide her. As it always had, even before she knew what it was.

“Okay...But it’s like Merrin said,” Cara commented, “the others are never going to understand.”

Sam nodded and sighed. “I know. I haven’t quite figured that part out yet. Kind of going moment by moment here.”

“Well....we do have a secret cave.”

“That we do...”

The two of them had returned to the cave just twice after first finding it, bringing back bed rolls to sleep on and materials to build a fire just in case they got stuck there overnight again.

“So if they say anything we can just run away here,” Cara suggested with a smirk.

“Yeah, something like that,” Sam said with a laugh. “Wait, so. Does that mean we’re...on the same page?”

Cara didn’t answer. Instead she pulled Sam closer until their foreheads were touching. “Why don’t you tell me?”

The Jedi smiled and closed her eyes, reaching out with the Force into Cara’s mind. She wasn’t sure whether it was because their heads were so close together or because the feeling was so strong, but it had never been easier to read someone’s thoughts.

_I love you, too_. That’s all her mind was saying, over and over. _I love you, too_.

“Well then.” Sam chuckled lightly and took Cara’s face in her hands, then kissed her, kissed her as if she was trying to make up for 11 years of not getting to do so.

Cara responded in kind, placing one strong hand on the back of her neck to pull her closer and gripping her vest tightly with the other. It wasn’t until she began to take control of the kiss, sneakily sliding her tongue between Sam’s momentarily parted lips, that the Jedi realized she hadn’t yet “turned off” the connection to her mind.

“What naughty thoughts you have, Cara Dune,” she said between kisses.

“What are you gonna do about it?” the mercenary whispered in her ear, sending a chill up her spine.

“Anything you want,” Sam vowed. Then they scaled the cliff and entered the cave, where she kept that promise.

~

Greef Karga’s life had never been better. Well, probably.

He’d spent several of his years as a magistrate blackout drunk, so it was impossible to remember for sure, but it was a safe bet his life now was better than that. And even if it wasn’t, he had to admit he was happy just to still be breathing. The whole debacle with the Mandalorian and the Imperials had put him right at death’s door -- multiple times -- and Karga wasn’t about to waste the extra life he’d been miraculously given.

He and the Guild members that had been left hanging around on Nevarro had fixed up the town and cleared out whatever Imps had yet to be killed, and within months they were thriving again. The shadow of the Empire no longer hung over his business nor the planet from which it operated.

And business was booming.

It seemed everybody in the Outer Rim had somebody to hate, somebody they needed hunted down. Not only that, but suddenly they were willing to pay better than just living wages for the service. Apparently word had gotten around that the Nevarro section of the Guild had survived a brutal run-in with the Imps, and anyone who’d ever dealt with the Imps themselves -- which was practically everyone -- knew that doing so put you in a special class of warriors.

Only Karga himself knew that none of the bounty hunters he still employed had anything to do with what had transpired, but he wasn’t about to start turning away profits by disclosing that information. It had all been the work of the Mandalorian, the shock trooper, the droid, and the magic baby, but none of them were around to take credit for it so he didn’t feel the need to correct anyone.

He did often find himself wondering where they all were now, however -- except for the droid, of course. Months ago Mando had contacted him asking if the town was safe for them to return to for a little while, but they’d never showed up. Karga wasn’t a sentimental man, but he hoped nothing terrible had happened. After all, once Mando found a new home for the kid, he had plans to try to convince him to rejoin the Guild.

But even if that never transpired, he couldn’t be upset. Business was good. Life was good.

Or at least it was, until the night the Imps returned.

Karga was holding court in his usual booth with his usual two fists full of spotchka when suddenly the loud, crowded common house fell silent. The sound of marching boots was quickly followed by the sight of the crowd parting for a flock of familiar black-armored troopers.

The Guild leader tried frantically to sneak out of the booth to flee, but he was surrounded on both sides by other patrons, stuck.

The troopers marched right up to his table and parted to make way for one man -- a man he had for months believed was dead. Karga’s mouth hung open.

“Try not to look so surprised, Guild leader,” said Moff Gideon. “We have important matters to discuss.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was gonna save this until tomorrow but I'm in a very good mood today so happy Sunday!

It was safe to say that Sam was not the best one in the relationship at keeping a low profile around other members of the team.

She and Cara had agreed it would be smarter, at least for now, to keep their new status to themselves. Of course that was easier said than done once the other Jedi returned. Sam knew that if she even thought the wrong thing around them it could be a huge problem. So, knowing her own wandering mind, she’d just tried to avoid them as much as possible. That turned out to be the wrong tack though, as they quickly noticed that she was acting weird. Luckily Merrin, who had the honor of being the only one who really knew what was going on, just told Cal that Sam was embarrassed about letting the child take her lightsaber again. The young Jedi had of course gotten another scolding thanks to that lie, but she figured it was better than the one she’d get if the truth came out.

After that she knew she couldn’t keep up the avoidance act and instead had to discipline her mind to focus on any subject around Cal and Cere other than the only thing she wanted to think about. That approach turned out also not to be ideal, as all that hyper-focused thinking made her head hurt.

Cara, conversely, was handling the pressure much better. Calm and cool by nature, her strategy apparently consisted of making everyone else in the crew fall a little bit in love with her so that it wouldn’t seem that strange that Sam had as well.

She’d already had Mando and the kid in her back pocket, then easily added Merrin through their similar histories. Greez was an easy mark for almost anyone -- all she had to do was praise his cooking more than the rest of them. Even Cal’s little droid liked her after she began to utilize his scanning abilities to learn about different flora and fauna around Bogano. The Jedi themselves were obviously more of a challenge as they were slow to trust by nature, but they had a weakness for hearing embarrassing stories about young Sam, and Cara had plenty of those to share.

Cara’s tactic seemed to be effective after a few weeks, but it did come with an unexpected wrinkle. The more Sam watched her girlfriend bond with her family, the harder it was to act like she didn’t want to run right over and kiss her senseless, and therefore the harder Cara had to work at making it all seem normal. It was a vicious cycle.

The mercenary complained to her girlfriend as much when they managed to steal a moment alone in the Zeffo vault the morning before they were both set to go on another mission, to where they hadn’t even determined yet.

“I know, I’m sorry,” Sam apologized, taking her in her arms. “Not my fault you’re so irresistible though.”

“Well it’s not mine either,” Cara said, then placed a shushing finger over Sam’s mouth when she began to refute that. “Just try to keep it in your pants while we’re off-world, huh?”

“Right. In my pants, not in my head.”

Cara rolled her eyes dramatically. “We are so screwed,” she laughed to herself before kissing Sam deeply. When they broke apart she looked her in the eye tenderly and asked what had become a routine question. “No second thoughts?”

Sam smiled and shook her head. “None whatsoever.”

Cara had asked every day since the morning they woke up together in the cave after Sam had confessed her feelings. She wanted to be sure the Jedi was always evaluating whether or not their relationship was worth ignoring parts of her code. Even if the answer eventually wasn’t what she wanted, Cara was committed to making sure. And that fact only made Sam more sure that she was making the right decision.

They lingered there in the vault for a few more minutes, neither of them eager to give up the intimate privacy of it in favor of heading to the _Mantis_ to find out where they were going next. But Sam knew from experience that if they waited too long, Merrin would just pop up and scare her. Suspecting that Cara was stalling just long enough for that to happen, she insisted they go. When they arrived on the ship, Mando was already there at the holotable beside Cal and Cere, the child napping peacefully in a sling across his chest.

“Figured out where this guy’s from yet?” Sam asked in reference to the sleeping baby.

“Yes, we just figured it out right before you came in,” Cal said sarcastically.

“Am I not allowed some wishful thinking?”

“I prefer useful thinking,” the red-haired master replied. So far the only thing their excursions had been useful for was crossing off planets from the list of worlds with Jedi temples. The Empire had apparently been quite exhaustive in its efforts to eradicate knowledge of and by the Order, and the list was growing alarmingly short.

“Well, actually I have been thinking about something more useful,” Sam stated. “I think we’re looking in the wrong place.”

Cal just looked at her tiredly.

“I think that’s obvious, Sam,” Cere deadpanned.

“No, I mean, I think we have the wrong strategy altogether,” the younger Jedi clarified. “We’ve been assuming that because there were others in the Order like him that the answers would be with the Jedi. But we’re forgetting to look at what he actually has done and where he’s been.”

“What he’s done, as in...” Cara began, then held a hand to her own throat.

Sam nodded. “Exactly,” she said, looking seriously at Cal and Cere. “I know we don’t want to believe it but he knows the Dark Side. And the Empire wanted him. There’s got to be something that connects those two facts.”

The elder two Jedi chewed on that statement for a moment. It was an uncomfortable truth that even though it had only been the one incident, the child had in fact used a power typically only employed by the Sith.

“You’re right, Sam,” Cere said finally. “But what does that mean for our efforts to identify him and find answers?”

“Well that’s where these two come in,” Sam answered, gesturing at Cara and Mando. “You were both there when he...did the thing. And you were there when the Imps came for him. Do you remember anything at all about why they wanted him?”

The Mandalorian and Alderaanian looked at each other as if it would help them remember, but they each shook their heads.

“Gideon didn’t have a lot to say about him,” Cara said.

“Neither did the old man who hired me on the bounty,” Mando added. “Or the doctor.”

“Doctor?” Cal asked. “What doctor?”

“When I was hired, and when I brought him in to collect the bounty, there was some kind of scientist with the client,” the masked man explained. “He was doing tests on him when I took him back.”

“What kind of tests?” Cere inquired, but the Mandalorian only shrugged in response.

As was always the case, information on the child was being uncovered in tiny, completely nonsensical chunks. And no two of those chunks added up to anything meaningful.

Suddenly Cara spoke up with an idea, addressing Sam. “He doesn’t remember, but what if you....” she held out her hand in the direction of Mando’s head and wiggled her fingers. “Can you see what he saw? Maybe there’s something in there you guys could make sense of that he couldn’t?”

Sam had to fight hard against the urge to kiss her. “You’re a genius,” she said with a grin, then turned to the Mandalorian. “Is that okay?”

The masked man seemed to glare at Cara for a moment, then looked at each of the Jedi in turn before finally giving in. “If you think it will help.”

“I’ll be careful in there, don’t worry,” Sam assured him. 

She closed her eyes and concentrated on the mind beneath the beskar helmet, focusing on his memories of protecting the child from the Imperials. She saw him bring down a TIE fighter single-handedly, saw an explosion take out a whole platoon at the mouth of a tunnel, saw the child himself save them all from a fiery death at the hands of an incinerator trooper. Sam fought to stay focused and ignore the awful feeling in her stomach at seeing Cara come so close to death.

They’d been correct in saying that Gideon hadn’t given them anything useful when he spoke, she found. He appeared to know all about them but gave up nothing specific of himself or his intentions. The man who hired Mando was no help either, although considering how unceremoniously he was dispatched by Gideon’s men, she had to assume he was just a pawn in it all.

Reaching back further, Sam saw the Mandalorian take out an entire remnant facility full of Imps to rescue the baby. The memory of when he took the child back from the doctor felt particularly sharp, as if he had replayed it himself many times over. The baby had been sleeping on an observation table as monitors beeped and scanned away, a menacing IT-O droid floating nearby while the doctor looked on. _The doctor...._

Sam must have been making a funny face because Cal’s voice broke in to her consciousness while she went through the memory again. “Do you have something?”

She kept her eyes closed and continued to focus. “The doctor. He seems...actually concerned about the child,” Sam said. “The only one of them that wanted no harm to come to him.”

“Probably so his experiments didn’t get stopped,” Cara said dismissively.

“Maybe...” the mind-reading Jedi replied, focusing harder on a small detail of Mando’s memory. “Do you know what this insignia is on his sleeve?”

“No,” the Mandalorian replied simply.

“It’s not Imperial?” Cere asked.

Sam shook her head and finally opened her eyes. “Never seen anything like it,” she said, then addressed Mando again. “After you took the kid, did that facility stay in operation?”

“I wouldn’t know,” he said. “But I don’t see why it wouldn’t have, at least until after the incident with Gideon.”

“So for all we know, the doctor’s equipment and everything is still there?”

“For all we know, sure.”

Sam eyed her master. “You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?”

“Can’t hurt to check it out,” Cal said with a nod. “Guess we have our destination.”

~

It was a slightly bigger crowd on the _Mantis_ for the trip to Nevarro than had been the usual for the last months. Only Cere and Merrin had been left on Bogano with the child, as opposed to the three-person groups that normally stayed. Cal had decided that his and Sam’s special powers would both be needed for the mission, as would Mando and Cara’s connections to the bounty hunting guild that occupied the town. And as always, Greez was the happy chauffeur.

As soon as the Latero engaged the hyperdrive, the passengers began to disperse into various parts of the ship. Sam was intent on following Cara wherever she went, but Cal called her aside before she got the chance.

“Sam, can I speak to you for a moment?” he asked, and she knew better than to treat it as a real question rather than a command.

“Yes, master,” she said, watching Cara stride off toward the back of the ship.

As they were left alone, Cal rubbed his chin thoughtfully before addressing his apprentice. “Sam, I need to know that your focus is where it needs to be for this mission.”

“It is,” she said confidently. As distracted as she may be on Bogano and the _Mantis_ , she knew once they touched down for a mission it was time to put everything else aside. “Cal, this whole trip was my idea.”

“I know, and I’m proud of you for thinking differently and coming up with a new plan. But I sense that your attention is being divided. And I think I know where else it goes when it’s not on the mission.”

“Cal, you--” She started to tell him he was mistaken but he cut her off.

“Look, I don’t know what is going on between you and Cara, and frankly I don’t think I want to. We’ll get to that later. But whatever it is, it cannot be allowed to cloud your judgement. We don’t know what forces are at play here, Sam. It’s more important than ever that we adhere to the Jedi Code. For our protection and the child’s.”

She could have denied it, could have pretended like she didn’t know what he was talking about, but it was clear he had sensed something. Maybe he’d even gotten a Force echo from something she and Cara had imprinted on. Either way, he knew enough. And it was pointless to argue.

“Yes, master,” Sam said, looking glumly at her feet.

Cal sighed. “Just stay focused on the mission, Sam. That’s all I’m asking.”

He left and she stood there alone in the common area for several minutes before Cara came back, looking around to make sure no one else was there to see or hear them.

“Now, I was under the impression that _you_ were going to come find _me_ ,” she said, but Sam made no reply. She stood directly in front of the Jedi and reached out to gently grab onto her shirt. “So, what are the odds we can find time to sneak away from this gang for a couple hours while we’re on-world, you think?”

Finally Sam looked at her and smiled sadly. “Pretty slim, I’m afraid.”

Cara frowned, alarmed by her demeanor. “Why?”

The Jedi chewed on her lip before answering. “Cal knows. I don’t know how, but he knows. Told me not to let it affect my judgement, warned me about staying focused....”

She fidgeted nervously and Cara could tell her mind was racing. She grabbed one of her hands and waited for Sam to look her in the eye again. “Second thoughts?” she asked. “Be honest, Sammy.”

Sam squeezed the hand holding hers and covered them both with her other one. _Honest_ , she thought. Honestly, she was feeling and thinking a hundred things at once. Honestly, the last thing she wanted was to let her master down. But honestly, nothing mattered more than the woman standing in front of her.

“No,” she said, honestly. “No second thoughts.”

Cara looked around again to make sure they were alone. “Good,” she said, then leaned in to kiss her, briefly but with affection. “I’ll just do my best not to be distracting.”

She walked away again, and Sam found it difficult not to be distracted just by that action. This was going to be a long trip.

As the ship made its approach to Nevarro hours later, the group gathered to discuss the plan. Mando had attempted to make contact with the Guild leader who’d helped them before, a man named Greef Karga, but he hadn’t gotten through to him. Neither he nor Cara seemed too concerned by that, however, and convinced the Jedi that they’d be fine just to stroll in and talk to him. He’d greet them with open arms, they said, so long as their lightsabers stayed out of sight.

But as Greez put the Mantis down on the outskirts of the city Mando directed them to, it started to look like they might not get any kind of greeting, warm or otherwise. Smoke billowed up in an endless cloud from what was left of the buildings. There seemed to be no signs of life.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Sam muttered, while the rest of them just gaped at the scene.

“I thought Karga told you they fixed the place up?” Cara asked Mando.

“They did....”

“I’d hate to see what it looked like before,” Sam quipped as the ship came to a stop.

“Let’s go,” Cal commanded. “We’ve got our work cut out for us. Keep it running, Greez. Sam’s not the only one with a bad feeling.”

The four of them carefully made their way into the town, blasters and lightsabers at the ready. But there was no one there. No one living, anyway. Street after street, building after building, only dead people and mangled droids could be found.

Fires raged on in more than half the town, but the common house Mando led them to seemed to have been spared the torch. Not that that made for any less of a grisly scene inside. Bodies covered the floor where people had been standing, piled up in booths where they’d been seated, all of them killed by blaster bolts.

“Brings back memories,” Cara said, and Sam’s heart clenched at the off-handed nature of the comment. “Mando? Got somethin’?”

The Mandalorian was studying the bodies around one table in particular, as if he was looking for someone among them. “This was Karga’s booth,” he said. “But he’s not here. He’s nowhere in here.”

“Maybe he got out,” Cara said. “Maybe he was in a different building.”

“No. If this place was open, he was here.”

Cal stepped forward to join Mando at the booth. He pressed his hand to the table and closed his eyes, feeling, listening to the echo in the Force that had been left.

“You’re right. He was here,” he said, then opened his eyes and faced the others. “And so was Moff Gideon.”

They all stared at him. Cara broke the silence with an unamused chuckle. “No. No, your-your magic is wrong,” she said. “He’s dead. We saw his fighter explode.”

“He must have survived,” Cal said with a shrug. “He was definitely here. And he took Karga with him.”

“Why would he do that?” Sam asked. “Why not kill him too?”

“He thought he would know where we were,” Mando said. “But he didn’t. I never told him.”

“We need to get off this planet,” said Cal. “Let’s find the doctor’s lab so we can get out of here.”

They did just that, following the Mandalorian to the Imperial facility and into the lab he’d recovered the child from. It hadn’t been completely burned, but enough of it had gone up that whatever the doctor had been working on was gone. They were about to leave, with no new leads and only more to worry about, when Sam heard the Force speaking to her.

She followed the sound to a door she hadn’t seen before, blending in with the charred wall around it. She hit the button beside it and the door slid open, revealing.... _a closet?_ She’d expected something more significant than a single clothing rod full of lab coats and other official-looking garb. She was about to close the door again when it hit her. The insignia.

“Cal,” she called. “Come look at this.”

Sam pointed him to the lab coats, adorned with the same crest she’d seen in Mando’s memory. It had to be significant if the Force had led her to it.

Her master’s eyes immediately grew wide with recognition. “I know that symbol,” he said. “Some of the clone troops I knew during the war had it tattooed on them. They said it was the insignia of the facility they were grown in on Kamino.”

Sam shook her head in confusion. “What are you saying? This guy’s a clone?”

“No. I think he engineers clones,” Cal said, reaching out for another echo in the Force but finding nothing significant. “That may be where we need to go next.”

Before they could really ponder the meaning behind that, Greez’s voice rang out on his comm. “Cal, we have incoming. You guys need to get out of there!” he said, his voice full of fear. “I’ve got your location, I’m moving closer to you.”

The four of them rushed out of the remnant facility, weapons drawn, and saw the _Mantis_ landing in the square several blocks away. At the same time, a troop carrier was landing on the other end of the street, releasing a load of bucketheads. The troops immediately began shooting, at both the _Mantis_ and the four humans running for it. A pair of TIEs zoomed overhead, taking aim at the sitting duck that was their cargo ship.

“Hey Mando, wanna take care of those?” Cara yelled as they ran, pointing to the fighters coming around for another pass.

“That was a one-time trick!” he shouted back. “I’ve got no charges!”

“I have to do everything myself,” the former shock trooper muttered, stopping where she was and trading her blaster pistol for the repeating rifle she’d been lugging around. She aimed it for the TIEs and fired, but they passed too quickly.

Another troop carrier hovered over a side street and suddenly there was fire raining on them from two different directions. Mando and the Jedi were nearly on the ship, but Cara was still in the same spot taking another go at the fighters.

“Cara, let’s go! You’ll never hit one!” Sam yelled at her from the boarding ramp as the two men entered the ship.

“We’ll never get off the ground if I don’t!”

Sam couldn’t argue with that. The shields on the _Mantis_ weren’t built to withstand Imperial-level assault. One or two direct hits in the wrong spot and they’d never make it off the planet alive. And being outnumbered by ships with far superior speed, there was a better than good chance of taking at least that many direct hits. Luckily Cara did manage to nick one in just the right spot to send it spinning into a building nearby, evening the odds slightly.

Sam felt the ship start to leave the ground and was about to jump down and give Cara some cover to get onboard when Cal’s hand on her shoulder stopped her. “What’s taking her so long? We have to leave!”

Suddenly Cara cursed out loud, and Sam whirled around to see her crumple in pain. “Cara!”

The stormtroopers had moved in quickly to surround them in the square. One stepped forward and hit the wounded mercenary with a stun blast while the rest continued to shoot at the _Mantis_. The remaining TIE landed a hit near the engines.

“Get us in the air, Greez!” Cal shouted to the cockpit.

“What?! No, we have to go get her!” Sam said incredulously as the ship quickly began to rise.

“There’s no time, Sam! If they capture or kill us, they’ll be able to take the data from this ship right back to Bogano and get the child. We have to go. Now.”

“But Cal--”

“Sam. You promised me. You said you wouldn’t let her affect your judgement,” he said, and Sam wanted to punch him. They couldn’t just leave her to die. What part of the Jedi Code was that?

They stood there, the two Jedi and the Mandalorian, as the ship rose and rose with the ramp still open.

“Anybody gonna close that?” Greez called over the comm system.

“No,” Mando said, not necessarily to the pilot. He looked directly at Sam. “Do you trust me?”

“What?”

“We’re running out of time,” he said, taking a wide-footed stance. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes?”

“Good. Hang on.”

“Hang on to wha--” Sam’s question was cut short as the Mandalorian ran at her and tackled her, straight out of the ship and into the Nevarro sky.

She quickly answered the question on her own, though, and clung to him for dear life.

“MANDO WHAT THE FU--”

Again her question went unfinished, as their freefall quickly turned into a more controlled flight when the Mandalorian engaged his jetpack.

“Get that light sword ready,” he advised.

“I thought I was supposed to hang on!”

“You said you trust me, just trust me,” he said. “You deal with the troopers, I’ll get the pilot. Let go on three.”

Sam had many, many questions in regard to that plan, but the way things were going, she knew she’d never even get one out.

“One...two...”

Sam focused on the Force connection with her lightsaber, readying herself to conjure it from her belt when she let go.

“Three!”

She released her grip from Mando’s torso, called up her lightsaber to her right hand and activated it, just moments before her feet hit something solid -- the top of one of the troop carriers, already taking off again. Sam quickly understood at least a little of Mando’s plan and slid down to the opening in the side of the transport, coming face to face with a dozen of the armored troops.

“Hello there.”

In a move that felt familiar to her, the Jedi used the Force to push half of them out the opening on the other side of the transport, then she slashed through the other half before they even knew what was happening.

“That all you got?” Sam asked rhetorically before dumping the bodies out of the ship just to be safe. She looked out, trying to find the Mandalorian, and was almost thrown from the transport herself when it took a sharp turn back toward the town. She grabbed one of the handholds, fearing the pilot was trying to throw her out on purpose. Looking out again, she saw that the _Mantis_ was gone and the other transport was already headed for open space, but in the opposite direction of where Greez had flown. She could hear the scream of the remaining TIE fighter but couldn’t see it, so it didn’t appear to be following the _Mantis_ either.

She heard an explosion in front of the ship, and seconds later the remains of the TIE passed below her. _What the hell?_ Then the door between the troop hold and the cockpit slid open. Sam readied her lightsaber for another round, but no one emerged.

“Come on or you’re gonna fall out!” Mando’s voice called from inside.

Sam rushed in, lightsaber still activated. The Mandalorian was flying the ship, tinkering with controls and monitoring readouts. Another stormtrooper and the pilot were unconscious on the floor. “How did you get in here?”

“Told you I’d get the pilot,” he said, then pointed at the hatch in the roof. “The _Mantis_ got away, but Cara’s on the other transport. I figure if we use the most recent coordinates in this thing it’ll bring us right to where they’re taking her.”

For the first time since he’d tackled her out of the ship, Sam’s emotions had time to catch up with her. She sat down heavily in the co-pilot’s seat and tried not to think about the pain Cara might be in, the terrible things that might happen to her if they didn’t get to her in time.

“You didn’t have to do this,” she told him.

“Of course I did,” Mando said calmly. “She’s family.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Working on the last chapter now (several more between this one and that one, don't worry) so if I manage to finish it this week I'll probably post more quickly. Also I hope y'all like cliffhangers because this isn't the worst one...


	8. Chapter 8

“I was really hoping I’d never see you again.”

Cara was still half-conscious at best when the familiar voice spoke to her. She heard it but couldn’t place it, too focused on trying to shake the fog out of her head and figure out where she was. Her limbs were heavy and stiff, and she was vaguely aware of a burning sensation in her side. She did her best to focus, to remember anything about how she got...well, wherever she was. It came back to her slowly. _Nevarro. The common house. The lab. The stormtroopers and TIE fighters._ The last thing she remembered was getting shot. That explained the burning. She must have been stunned too, she reasoned, considering the blackout and the paralysis.

“I hoped you two would be smart enough to stay away,” the voice continued. “Guess I should have known better.”

With effort, she turned her head toward it, the fog inside slowly melting away. The face attached to the voice was familiar, too.

“Karga?” she rasped, barely able to make her voice work as the effects of the stun blast wore off.

“Yeah,” he said, almost sadly, as if he was ashamed of his own name.

“Where are we?” Cara asked, looking around but unable to make out much at first due to the fuzziness in her eyes. Even when it faded away, though, she realized there wasn’t much to see. It was just a small, blank room with a cell-like quality. No windows, no furniture. Just one door with no way to open from the inside and two sad humans.

Karga laughed humorlessly. “What does it matter? We aren’t getting out,” he said, and for the first time Cara could see how beat up he looked. Battered and bloody, it appeared that they’d been torturing him somehow since bringing him from Nevarro. No wonder he was talking like a man defeated. “We survived Gideon once, we won’t do it again.”

The name sent a chill through her. It was one thing when Cal had said it. Cara wrote that off as his magic Force power being mistaken. But he had been right. Karga just confirmed exactly what he said.

“He brought you here?” she asked. “Gideon? He killed everyone in the town?”

The Guild leader nodded. “Made me watch. Gunned them all down, torched everything in sight, left lookouts and platoons to take care of anybody else that came after that. Apparently he wasn’t happy that I didn’t know where you and Mando were.”

 _That’s putting it lightly_. Cara wondered whether he would have told the Moff if he had known, but she didn’t think now was the time to get into that.

“Well. Great timing on our part, huh?” They couldn’t have shown up more than a day or two after Gideon and his men had been there. If they’d shown up any earlier....she didn’t even want to think about that. “You thought about trying to get out of here yet?”

Cara’s limbs had finally woken up and she was ready to get moving if there was anywhere to go, not one to just sit around and wait to die. But Karga just scoffed.

“Did you not hear me the first time? We’re not getting out of this. Even if by some miracle you could open that door, you’d never even make it down the corridor. Face it. We’re going to die here.”

“Would you relax?” Cara said, as much to herself as to the dramatic Guild leader. “Sam and Mando will come, they’ll get us out.”

“Who’s Sam? Is that what he named the kid? That’s a stupid name,” he blurted out all at once, and Cara couldn’t help but laugh.

“I can’t wait to tell her you said that,” she muttered.

“Her? I thought the baby was a he?”

“Kriff’s sake...” she rubbed between her eyes tiredly. “Sam is not the baby okay. She’s my....she’s someone we’ve been traveling with.”

Cara stopped short of saying what Sam really was, for fear that Gideon and his men could have the room wired to listen to them, although she realized it was probably too late to take that into account. After all, she had just announced that Mando and the Jedi would be coming to bust them out. Not that that was a given. Cara had no way of knowing if they’d even survived the firefight, much less made it off Nevarro, much less convinced Cal to come back for the most expendable member of the whole crew. Especially now that he knew what a distraction she was to his apprentice. _Blast it_ , Cara thought. _I really am gonna die here_.

Just then the door opened.

“I hope you’re right...” Karga mumbled.

A pair of Gideon’s death troopers marched in and grabbed her, and Cara had to remind herself very firmly that trying to punch her way out of this as per usual would likely just get her killed. They led her out of the cell, leaving Karga alone inside, and down an otherwise empty corridor. She made herself as heavy as possible purely out of spite as the troopers dragged her through the facility to another small, windowless room. But unlike the previous one, this room had one item of furniture. If it could even be called that.

Cara fought fiercely as the men attempted to secure her to the upright chair that would most definitely be used to torture her. It took the backup of three additional stormtroopers, but they finally managed to strap her to it by the arms and legs before leaving her alone. She might as well have been stunned again -- there was no getting out of those binds. All she could do was sit there and wait. And wait. And wait. She waited for what felt like an hour, actively trying not to dread whatever was coming next. Dreading it wouldn’t make it any easier.

Eventually the death troopers returned, entering the room side by side then parting, revealing not the ghost of Moff Gideon, as she’d hoped, but the man himself. Cara scowled involuntarily at the sight of him.

Gideon strode in confidently, then slowly circled the interrogation chair with his eyes never leaving her, as if surveying his prey.

“I have to say,” he announced, “I’m disappointed.”

“That seems to be the consensus today,” Cara muttered with a roll of her eyes, recalling what Karga had said when she woke up.

“Not in you, no,” the moff clarified. “I’m disappointed in my men. Your new friends must either be very talented or very lucky to have escaped. Or they just didn’t care about you at all, I suppose. Either way, I truly hoped my troops would have tried harder to fetch a more valuable prize than you.”

“I’ll try not to take that personally,” she snarked, also making a mental note not to take personally the fact that he was maybe right about the others leaving her behind.

“Oh, don’t worry Miss Dune. I’m confident your value will increase the longer I keep you in this room.”

“Like a fine wine, huh?”

Gideon’s mouth turned up into a grin so vile Cara had to look away. “No,” he said coldly. “You see, the longer I keep you in this room, the more likely you are to tell me where I can find the Jedi or the Mandalorian and the child. And that, Miss Dune, will be very, very valuable to me.”

He turned away, and Cara forced herself to laugh. His head whipped around again.

“Is something funny?”

She shook her head smugly. “Just thought you could do better with the tough guy lines is all,” Cara said. “Also, I’m not gonna tell you shit. It’s been said I’m very strong-minded.”

Gideon let out a sharp breath that sounded almost like a laugh. “I’m sure you are. Former Republican shock trooper, survivor of Alderaan...not a life for the weak-minded, that’s a given. But I’m also quite positive you’ll tell me exactly what I need to know. Eventually.”

She sighed deeply, trying to sound bored. “How about this? I’ll talk if you do. What are you after the kid for anyway?”

“How about you tell me about Samira Cardell?” he asked suddenly, and Cara’s mouth snapped shut into a hard glare. He grinned again. “Ah. So she _is_ the one. I wasn’t completely sure she was one of the Jedi reported to have been with you on Nevarro. And I have to admit, I don’t enjoy not being completely sure. But she spent so long off the Empire’s radar after escaping from the Alderaan outpost, it was impossible to know for certain. Until you told me, that is. I hope the two of you have had a very happy reunion. As short-lived as it may have been.”

Cara tore her eyes away from him to stare straight ahead. She’d tried to play him, to act like she had the upper hand for as long as possible, but he’d called her bluff. And raised.

Gideon turned to his troopers guarding the door. “I think that is all we’re going to get from Miss Dune today. Take her back to the cell and let her think about what the morning will have in store for her.”

~

“How do I look?”

Sam’s voice took on the same mechanical quality as Mando’s as she spoke through the helmet of the stormtrooper outfit stolen off the pilot’s guard. The Mandalorian looked up at her and shrugged.

“It’s a good thing you’re tall.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. Just make sure you find somewhere to take that off before she sees you,” he advised. “Might not end well for you otherwise.”

“No kidding,” Sam agreed, knowing full well how deep Cara’s hatred of anyone wearing that uniform went. “Alright, meet you back here soon. I hope.”

She gave him her best Imperial salute and exited the cockpit. As planned, they had been able to program the transport ship to return to the place it had been dispatched from, which turned out to be a capital class cruiser hanging out in the middle of space. Sam had to admit she found that surprising. She didn’t think the Imperial remnants had the means to operate such ships so long after the war had ended. But nothing should have shocked her at this point. Nothing since that day on Coruscant had gone the way she expected.

Mando had found the necessary codes to get them clearance to land in the docking bay, but that was just the start of what was sure to be a long string of improvisations that would need to go very smoothly in order for them to get back off the cruiser alive and with the third member of their crew. The stormtrooper armor would be doing a lot of work, allowing Sam to move around the facility undetected, but Mando was on his own. He assured her he would be fine -- he’d snuck around successfully in far more secure places. The plan was for him to find them a different ship to take off in, one more heavily armed and shielded in case of an escape under fire, while she was on Cara-finding duty.

Sam tried to look as stormtroopery as possible as she marched alone through the hangar and then the corridors of the expansive ship, all the while reaching out to feel Cara’s presence through the Force. She let it guide her onto a turbolift to an upper floor and through a maze of hallways that all looked the same. As she moved she felt the mercenary’s presence more acutely, and was glad to realize that it didn’t feel like she was in danger or pain. Well, not terrible pain anyway. That was a good sign.

The enormous ship seemed extremely under-staffed for its size, and Sam felt that was a good sign as well. The fewer troopers between them and their exit once she had Cara, the better. The scarcity of them did cause a few confused looks at her on the way in, however, as the rest of them seemed to be operating in pairs. Sam just kept going, nodding cordially at the ones that clocked her and thanking the Force each time nothing more came of it. Just as she was beginning to think she needed to make up a cover story for her solo journey, the Force spoke back to her.

She came across yet another pair of troopers, standing sentry on either side of a door in the middle of the corridor. _This is it_ , Sam knew instinctively, feeling a strong familiar presence on the other side.

“Hey fellas,” she said, squaring herself between the guards. “You mind unlocking that door for a fellow trooper?”

They looked at each other, then back at her. “On whose orders?” one asked.

“Oh. Mine,” she replied, and the trooper gave her a confused head tilt. “Wait, my fault, I forgot.” Sam waved her hand in front of their faces. “You _will_ unlock the door and leave this level.”

She held her breath as they looked at each other again. This time the other one spoke. “We’ll unlock the door and leave this level.”

Sam breathed a sigh of relief that her mind trick finally worked. She watched the trooper disengage the door lock and then the two of them took off down the corridor. Once they were out of sight she shed her own armor, took another deep breath, and opened the door.

The first person she saw wasn’t Cara, but rather the dark-skinned man she recognized from Mando’s memories. It was Sam’s turn to cock her head in confusion. Surely that wasn’t the familiar presence she’d been tracking. “Uhh...hey...”

“Sam!” Before she even saw Cara, the Jedi was wrapped in a crushing hug from the side. She hadn’t gotten the wrong signal from the Force after all. She sighed again, even more relieved, and turned into the hug. “I knew you’d come.”

“Of course. I was scared of what you’d do to me if I didn’t,” she joked, pulling away to examine the shorter woman. “Are you okay? You got shot, how are you okay?”

Cara waved her off. “Just a scratch. I’ve had worse.”

“Well we don’t have the time right now, but we’re going to have to get into that later,” Sam said, then kissed her quickly but passionately.

The man she’d already forgotten about cleared his throat loudly. “Someone you’ve been traveling with, eh?” he said with a pointed look at Cara.

She rolled her eyes at him. “Sam, Greef Karga. Karga, Sam Cardell.”

“Hi,” Sam said. “We should be going. All of us.” She poked her head out the door again, seeing no signs yet of anyone being onto them and grabbing the blaster she’d left with the armor. She handed it to Cara, who immediately looked more comfortable with it in her hands, and activated her lightsaber. “Anybody here ever crawled through a ventilation shaft?”

“Uh uh,” Cara said with stern disapproval. “That may work for scrawny Jedi like you and Cal but not me. Plan B.”

Sam grumbled in frustration, then moved to the back wall of the room, placing her hand on it and closing her eyes.

“What’s she doing?” Karga not-so-quietly whispered to the mercenary, and Sam heard the unmistakable sound of her elbowing him to shut up.

“I don’t sense any life forms through here,” she said. “Guess that’s plan B. As in, ‘be ready for anything.’”

She plunged her lightsaber through the wall and carved a hole large enough for them to walk through, kicking down the chunk she cut out. On the other side of the wall was a seemingly endless room -- and seemingly endless crates.

“Cargo hold?” Cara asked.

“Looks like it. Good call on plan B.”

The three of them moved as quickly but as silently as they could through the hold, trying to find the nearest turbolift back to the hangar floor. Sam knew no troopers were inside to cause them trouble, but one signal from an inventory droid that detected intruders could definitely make their escape more complicated. They came across one just before locating and getting on the lift, but Sam sliced through it with her lightsaber before it even noticed them.

“Good thing you practice on those robots all the time,” Cara teased as the elevator took them down to the hangar, where hopefully Mando had held up his end of the plan.

Sam snorted. “Yeah, droids I can handle. We see any people, though, and I might be in trouble.” The lift came to a stop and she readied her lightsaber as the door slid open, revealing a chaotic scene. “Oh....I might be in trouble.”

More than a dozen stormtroopers were in the hangar, all firing on a gunship hovering near the opening into space. The ship’s cannons were alternating fire between the troopers and other ships. Alarms blared, fires burned, more troopers ran in from a side door.

Mando’s voice yelled over the comlink in Sam’s vest pocket as the three newcomers entered the hangar. “Sam, I may have drawn some attention! The quicker the better!”

“‘Some attention’ he says,” she complained to Cara and Greef, taking the comm from her pocket to yell back at him. “We’re in the hangar, try to hold ‘em off so we can get there!”

They made it halfway through the enormous room before they drew any attention themselves, not as far as Sam would have liked. She and Cara flanked the unarmed man with them, the former deflecting blaster bolts with her lightsaber, the latter mowing down as many troopers as she could with her own blaster. The element of surprise on their part didn’t last long, and eventually all the stormtroopers stopped firing on the ship and focused on them.

“Just run, I’ll cover you!” Sam shouted to the others. She could sense that Cara wanted to object, but the mercenary did as ordered, apparently conceding that getting shot once already on this outing was enough.

The young Jedi focused all her energy on feeling rather than seeing where each next bolt was coming from and deflecting them straight back to take out each trooper that shot them. It wasn’t the first time Sam had been in a firefight like this, but every other time Cal had been right there by her side. Without him she was doing twice the work, and it wasn’t easy. Finally she felt her heel reach the boarding ramp of the ship and heard Karga’s boots run up into it. Cara was still at her shoulder, firing away. More stormtroopers flooded in and began to shoot indiscriminately toward them and the ship.

Sam was overwhelmed. Suddenly shots were landing in small, sparking explosions on either side of them. She moved to cover Cara more fully and was about to tell her to get onboard when she felt it.

The bolt ripped through her abdomen, sending fire and electricity through her whole being like a flash of lightning. She struggled to stay on her feet, but her knees gave out and she fell clumsily on the ramp.

“Sam?” Cara’s voice was more panicked than she’d ever heard it, but without missing a beat, the mercenary grabbed her under each arm and dragged her unceremoniously up the ramp. She laid her down, slammed the lock panel, and began barking orders. “Take off! Now! Karga, find us a medpac! Stay with me, Sammy....”

Sam tried as hard as she could to breathe steadily for her as she felt the ship move, but it just wouldn’t work. Her breaths were ragged and uneven as Cara knelt down next to her and held her hand.

“Well this sure was....a fun trip, huh?” she grunted, forcing a grin.

Cara shook her head in worried amusement. “Still no second thoughts?”

Sam laughed, immediately regretting it as pain ripped through her again. Still she managed to squeeze the hand holding hers. “Not a chance....You?”

“Never,” Cara said with a smile.

It was the last image Sam saw before her world went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope I didn't keep y'all hanging too long.

The moments between Sam passing out and Karga arriving at her side with the medpac were some of the longest of Cara’s life. Or so it seemed. It was probably just a matter of seconds in reality, but it felt like an eternity.

Either way, it had been enough time for her brain to spiral into the worst-case scenario. Sam was dying, and there was nothing she could do to stop it, nothing to keep her from losing the person she loved more than anyone in the galaxy. Again. For good.

But finally Greef had come through, and Cara dug into the kit to find a stim canister. It was enough to get the Jedi breathing more steadily but not enough to wake her up or heal the wound in her midsection. The bolt had most definitely hit a vital organ or two, and if they didn’t get her real help soon, Cara’s worst-case scenario would quickly become a reality.

She told Mando as much once she was able to pry herself away from Sam’s side long enough to consult with him on where they were headed. The two of them argued for a whole minute over what planet was close enough and safe enough for them to land and get help -- he’d already had to do some fancy flying and signal jamming just to get them away from the capital ship unscathed -- before Karga cut in.

“Just take her to the kid,” he said, holding out his arm as a reminder of the child’s abilities. He’d been moments away from death after their camp had been attacked on the lava fields. But the baby had healed him in seconds, and now it was like nothing had ever happened.

Cara and Mando shared a look before silently agreeing that he was right. There was no way to know for sure if they’d get there in time, but it was their best bet. The Mandalorian set the ship’s navicomputer for Bogano, after checking once more to make sure the tracking system was down so that they couldn’t be followed.

Deeming herself no longer useful in the cockpit, Cara returned to the sad little table that was masquerading as Sam’s infirmary bed. She hated everything about this. She hated how helpless she was, hated how hard it was to keep her emotions in check, hated how Sam had gotten hurt protecting her, rescuing her. For so long Cara hadn’t relied on anyone to do that. She’d learned a long time ago that relying on people, needing people, was nothing more than a really good way to get yourself let down. What if the Jedi had it right after all? What if attachment did only lead to suffering? It was impossible not to feel that Sam’s attachment to her had only put her in harm’s way.

Cara fought away guilt-ridden tears as she sat there holding Sam’s hand and brushed the wayward silver hair off her forehead. “I’m so sorry I did this to you...”

They’d both said they had no second thoughts, but the longer Cara sat there and worried the more she doubted herself. Maybe they’d been better off separated and safe. Maybe they should have heeded the signs from the galaxy that they shouldn’t be together. If they had, maybe Sam wouldn’t be dying.

“Whatever you’re thinking, I hope you know she’d do it again,” Mando’s filtered voice came from the entryway.

She didn’t look up at him, just kept staring at Sam, watching her chest rise and fall with each labored breath.

“How do you know?” The question came out cold and bitter, and barely audible.

“Because she almost had to fight her master to come do it the first time,” he said. “There’s no scenario where she’d leave you behind again.”

Cara sat there silently for a spell, and Mando began to turn around to leave her alone with her thoughts before she finally spoke up. “You’re right.”

“What?”

“You’re right. She’s been protecting me since the day we met,” she said quietly, still afraid to take her eyes off Sam. “From back when it was just some dumb kids in the schoolyard all the way to now against a whole army of Imps....never was smart enough to just stand down.”

“Sounds like someone I know,” he said.

“Where do you think I got it from?” she asked with a sad chuckle. “I just...can’t help but think we’re cursed....”

“You’re kidding, right?”

Finally she looked up at him. “What?”

“How could you think you’re cursed?” he asked, sounding almost incredulous.

“Well, let’s see,” Cara counted off the reasons on her fingers. “We get separated and lose our whole planet, spend 11 years apart thinking each other is probably dead, finally get back to each other only for there to be a rule against us being together, then the moment we decide to say ‘fuck it’ to that rule one of us gets captured and the other gets shot? I don’t know, Mando, at what point do _you_ start thinking it’s a curse?”

The Mandalorian just looked at her and shrugged. “Sounds to me like you’re getting more chances than most people,” he said. “But what do I know?”

Cara could only sit there motionless, absorbing his words. He may as well have gotten them straight from Sam’s own mouth. She must have told him everything on the way to rescue her, must have told him that they’d decided to take the second chance they’d been given, no matter what the consequences were.

Sam had been indecisive and confused for months before that, but ever since she’d admitted her feelings to Cara she’d been absolutely sure. Never once had second thoughts, never once believed it would be anything but worth it. They _would_ be worth it, Sam believed. Every moment they got together now, after so long apart, would be worth everything they’d been through and anything they’d go through. She was so sure, and Cara hated herself for being unsure now, when Sam needed her the most.

But she knew Sam was right. Mando was right. As crazy as it was to think right now, with one of them lying there dying, they were lucky. They had gotten so incredibly lucky to even get back what little time they had. Millions of others on Alderaan could never say that again. What an insult it would be to them, to give up now just because it wasn’t easy. Cara had no choice but to trust that everything was happening the way it was supposed to, as Sam did.

An incoming communication alert chimed in the cockpit, and the Mandalorian turned to leave again in hopes that the message was Cal returning his call.

“Mando,” Cara said, drawing his attention back to her just before he was out of sight. “Thank you.”

If they were different people, she would have been more specific. _Thank you for coming to save me. Thank you for talking some sense into me. Thank you for being my family._ But he didn’t need her to say all of that, and she knew it.

“Any time.”

~

Cal had gotten Mando’s message about them returning to Bogano in a stolen ship with an injured Jedi, and the whole crew was ready and waiting nervously when he brought it down on the landing pad.

There was no time to move Sam off the ship -- her breathing had only grown more shallow, and Cara could swear the hand she’d been holding the whole way had gotten colder the longer they were stuck in hyperspace. Only seconds after the ship’s landing gear touched the surface of the planet, they were surrounded by the rest of the crew. Cal and BD-1, Cere, Merrin, Greez -- Sam’s adoptive little family, the people she’d traveled with, fought for, depended on for so long -- they all carried the same worried look that Cara did as they stood by her side. But there was no time for worrying.

“You tried the stims?” Cal asked urgently as BD hopped down to scan Sam’s body.

“Only had one,” Cara replied, still seated at Sam’s side but no longer holding her hand in the presence of the other Jedi. “Was enough to get us here but it isn’t going to save her.”

The droid booped sadly at Cal, who translated his findings. “Heart rate’s dropping...”

“We know that already,” Cara snapped. “Nothing normal is going to fix this, we need the kid.”

“She’s right,” Mando agreed, joining the crowd around the table and taking the child from Merrin. He placed him down next to Sam, but the baby just looked up expectantly at the Mandalorian’s helmet, his ears perked and eyes wide.

“Might want to tell him that,” Cere said.

All the worried eyes focused on the child as Mando turned him around to look at Sam instead. “Come on, kid...” he pleaded quietly. He glanced across the table at Cara, whose usually stoic face was etched with fear and pain. “We need you.”

The child seemed to take the hint. He looked at Cara as well, and, for reasons she could never put into words, she felt as if he was looking into her mind the same way Sam could. Like he was hearing her thoughts, sensing her anguish. _Help her_ , she implored. _Please help her_.

He cooed softly at her, then reached out his tiny, three-fingered hands and placed them on Sam’s torso. Her clothes and flesh were scorched, her skin painfully red around the ugly black wound. The only noise in the whole ship was the raspy sound of her shallow breaths as they all watched the child close its eyes to focus.

For a moment it looked like nothing was happening, like the ability they’d seen work on Karga’s arm was ineffective this time. But soon the redness began to fade, drawing back in toward the open wound little by little. Sam’s burned skin transformed back into its usual smooth, pale form before their eyes. Her breaths became less labored. BD scanned her again and beeped happily.

The others sighed and gasped in relief and admiration, but Cara continued to hold her breath, eyes focused on Sam’s face, willing her to wake. The child finally opened his own eyes and took his hands off the Jedi, then collapsed backwards off the table into Mando’s waiting hands.

Sam’s eyes fluttered open, and Cara couldn’t help the explosive sigh of relief that escaped her. The Jedi squinted, first at the abundance of natural light coming in from the Bogano suns outside, then in confusion at the crowd of interested faces surrounding her.

“Aw man, did I get knocked out by a bog rat again?” she slurred.

“Yeah, she’s back,” Greez said with a laugh.

Cere wasn’t so amused. “Not quite, Sam. Do you really not remember?”

Sam’s mind was blank for a moment, but when her eyes landed on Cara’s, she remembered. “The hangar...I got shot,” she said slowly, putting the pieces together. Her hand grazed over her abdomen, where she expected there to be a gaping wound, but only found a hole burned into her vest and shirt. “I don’t understand....”

“It was the child,” Cal said, nodding at the baby now asleep in the crook of Mando’s elbow. “He healed you. Saved your life.”

“Huh” was all Sam could say. She rested her head wearily on the table, and Cere began ushering the crowd out of the ship.

“We’ll give you some space,” she said, and Sam knew there was an implied _but we’ll need to talk about this_ attached to the end.

The Mantis crew filed out of the ship, leaving Cara, Mando, and Karga there with her. The Mandalorian bumped her shoulder with his fist appreciatively before following with the sleeping child. “Glad you’re okay,” he said, with as much emotion as Sam had ever heard from him.

“Quite a daring rescue,” Karga added with approval, mimicking the action before falling in line behind Mando to be introduced to the others.

When it was only the two of them left, the Alderaanians’ eyes and hands found each other’s automatically. They stayed silent for a long moment, just watching each other and holding on, anchoring themselves again. Finally Sam sat up on the edge of the table, surprised and relieved to find she could do it painlessly. She brought the other woman up to stand between her knees and hugged her close, not caring for a second whether anyone was about to come in and catch them.

“I thought I lost you,” Cara mumbled into her chest as she held on for dear life.

“I know,” Sam said. The first place her mind had gone when she’d woken up was straight into Cara’s. There had been so much worry inside it, so much fear. Some of it lingered even now, as they held each other, and Sam wanted nothing more in her life than to make it go away forever. “You’re not gettin’ rid of me that easily, though.”

She pulled back to grin at her girlfriend, who shook her head with reluctant amusement. “You’re not as funny as you think you are.”

“Good thing I get more time to work on that.” She pulled Cara in to kiss her, infinitely glad to have more time to work on that as well.

There wasn’t much time to work on it right then, however. They hesitantly separated and exited the hijacked ship to join back up with the rest of the crew. Sam realized there was a good chance she was headed for a tongue-lashing from Cal, considering the last time they saw each other she’d disobeyed his direct order, and broke a key rule of the Jedi Code in the process.

But the others were already listening with rapt attention as Karga enthusiastically described their escape from Gideon’s star cruiser. He made Sam out to be a hero, bravely risking life and limb to free a pair of prisoners from the clutches of an evil entity. And in truth, that’s exactly what she’d done. She only hoped Cal and Cere would see it that way, and not that she’d gambled the safety of the child and the rest just to save those two (one of whom she hadn’t even planned to save in the first place). Karga wrapped up his story as Sam and Cara joined the group, slapping a hand on the latter’s shoulder when she stopped next to him.

“Who knows how long we would have been stuck in that cell if it wasn’t for your girl, huh?” he asked her with a grin, and Cara shot her signature _shut the fuck up right now_ glare at him. His smile faltered and he backed down, clearly getting the message.

“Yes, it’s good to have you all here now,” Cere said diplomatically with a pointed look at Sam, who deflected it to the ground like a blaster bolt. “Before we...celebrate that, however...we ought to debrief on what we’ve learned about our situation over the last few days.”

“Well, Gideon’s alive,” Mando started.

“And mad,” added Cara. “He still has no idea where we are. But he knows we’re running with Jedi now. And...”

She trailed off with a nervous look toward Sam, who prompted, “And?”

“He knew your name,” the mercenary said. “Your, uh, full name.”

Sam groaned even louder and more painfully than she had after being shot.

“Your full name?” Cal echoed with a teasing grin at his apprentice. “What’s your full name?”

“Is that really the most important thing here?” the silver-haired Jedi protested. “Don’t we have life and death issues to discuss?”

“Well now we all wanna know,” said Greez, motioning around at the group with all four of his arms. The rest of them voiced their agreement.

Sam glared at Cara. “I should have left you in that cell,” she said through gritted teeth. Somehow she was able to talk her way out of revealing what she considered to be her embarrassing full name -- for now -- and steer the conversation back to more pressing matters.

“So we still don’t know what Gideon wants with the kid,” Cal said, “but we may have found a lead on how to find out. The doctor that had been running tests on him was from a Kaminoan facility. Cloners. I think our next move is to go there and try to find him.”

It would be a risky undertaking. They had no intel on the man or the facility. But they also had no other options or leads.

“Alright,” Cere agreed. “I’ll work on reaching out to some contacts and see if we can get any help so we’re not going in blind. In the meantime let’s stay alert for any visitors, but relax as much as you can. I have a feeling things are only going to get more interesting from here.”

What could possibly be more interesting than almost dying, Sam didn’t want to think about. The group began to break up and go their separate ways, but Cal asked her to hang back for a moment. Cara caught her eye to silently ask if backup was needed, but Sam just waved her on. Whatever was coming, she was prepared to take it on the chin.

She joined Cal at the edge of the mesa, both of them squinting out across the settlement at the dual sunset.

“Sam, I want you to know that I’m...sorry,” the red-headed Jedi said, just about shocking Sam to the point of falling off the edge of the cliff. “About Nevarro. You were only trying to save an innocent life. It’s what any good Jedi would do. And if I’d been there to help you....” He paused and looked at her, the end of his thought unnecessary in the moment. “I was the one whose judgement was clouded.”

Sam held his gaze and tried to remember another time when he’d apologized or admitted he’d made a bad call. She couldn’t come up with one, but that was probably because he didn’t often need to do either of those things. For as much as they disagreed at times, and as much as he’d had to lecture her about her mistakes, she had to admit that Cal always had her best interest at heart.

“I think we were both wrong in one way or another,” she said.

“Maybe so. Guess that’s the beauty of the master-apprentice relationship,” he said with a smile. “Sometimes our wrongs can balance each other out.”

“I guess so,” Sam agreed. He’d let her off the hook for her act of defiance on Nevarro, but there was still the bigger issue of what he planned to do about her relationship with Cara. She thought she might as well get to explaining. “Cal—”

“I’m happy you’re alright Sam. We can talk about the rest later,” Cal said, holding up his hand to stop her before she could say any more. He turned and began to walk away, but stopped as if remembering something and turned back with a grin. “And you can tell me your full name.”

He left her standing there, laughing and talking to herself. “There’s gotta be a way I can erase that from all their memories….”

“I’d like to see you try.” Cara’s voice behind her caused Sam to jump in surprise.

“Okay, where were you hiding?”

“Don’t worry about it,” the mercenary said, hugging her from the side. “You should know I’m not letting you out of my sight from now on, though. I don’t care what he says.”

“Oh really?”

“Mmhm.”

“Seems invasive,” Sam joked.

“Coming from the girl who can literally listen to my thoughts?”

“Fair point,” she said, hugging her back before looking into her soft brown eyes. “You alright?”

“I wasn’t,” Cara admitted with a sigh. “But Mando helped me out. And you’re not dead, so. Things are looking up.”

Sam hummed and nodded. “Good guy, that Mando.”

“Yeah, I think we can keep him around.”

“Just a word of advice though, make sure you have a code phrase or something before he tackles you out of a ship in mid-air.”

“Before he _what?!_ ”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So from here on I'm doing a lot of what we call "pulling stuff out of my ass." Hopefully it's not all super unbelievable.
> 
> Also I suppose I should have done this before now but like, spoiler alert for certain JFO parts in the next few chapters. Feels weird to do that but I know there are at least a couple people reading who haven't played the game yet. (I don't think anything I reveal will affect your experience of the game but I'd rather cover my butt just in case)

It took a couple of weeks for the reality of escaping death to fully hit Sam. But as soon as it did, she lost all ability to sleep.

She’d gotten lucky. If it weren’t for that kid and his special ability -- which even Cal and Cere agreed was out of the ordinary even for the strongest of Jedi -- Sam would only be a memory. By all accounts, she should have been. It would be difficult for anyone’s mind to be calm enough to sleep while knowing that about themselves, but hers had always been overactive to begin with, and the new realization of her mortality was just too much.

So she stayed awake.

Through all those long hours, she could only look back on her life and all the things she’d done. And hadn’t done. She thought, she worried, she pondered. But mostly she watched. Cara fell asleep next to her every night, and Sam spent all that time awake just watching her. It was the only thing that calmed her mind, eased her soul. She studied every beautiful line on her face, memorized every perfect curve of her body, as if she’d be tested on them and both their lives depended on her knowing the right answers. After spending so much of her life not being able to see Cara -- and almost dying soon after getting to do so again -- every single second Sam spent not looking at her felt like a waste of the extra life she’d been given.

So she stayed awake.

Even when she did happen to fall asleep, when her body managed to override her mind, it didn’t last long. Sam would wake up again after a few hours and get right back to watching. It wasn’t long before she got caught, not that she tried to hide it. Cara woke one morning to a pair of loving gray eyes staring unapologetically back at her, tired but full of wonder at what they were beholding.

“What’re you lookin’ at?” she mumbled before hiding behind Sam’s shoulder.

The Jedi chuckled softly. “Just my favorite face,” she said, then kissed her lightly on the forehead.

Cara looked at her again and frowned. “You’re not sleeping, are you?” Sam shook her head. “What are you thinking about during all that time?”

“Everything,” she said honestly. “But lately just...about what happens after all this. After we figure out what the kid’s deal is and we’re all safe.”

“And what do you think happens?”

“Not sure,” she admitted. “Probably depends on what Cal ever has to say about us.” Since the Nevarro incident and ensuing events, her master hadn’t spoken again about their relationship or what Sam should or shouldn’t be letting affect her judgement. No one said a word about them at all, in fact, and they weren’t really trying to hide what they were doing anymore. But Sam still had an uneasy feeling about the future, about how necessary they would be to the team once this was all over. “We could just....go.”

“Go?”

“Yeah, you know. Run off and start our own crew, do whatever we want.”

Cara was surprised to hear the suggestion come so easily, and even more surprised that it came with a look in Sam’s eye that she hadn’t seen since they were kids. A look of curiosity, of a hunger for adventure.

“And what is it you want?” she asked.

“I don’t know...” Sam said. “Haven’t had to think about that for a while.”

Eleven years of following Cal’s lead had her unaccustomed to thinking too much about what came next, about what she wished she could do, rather than what she had to do. It made for a relatively stress-free life, but it also meant she was out of practice when it came to knowing what she wanted. Aside from Cara, anyway.

“I just want to wake up like this every day,” she said, lightly stroking the face she’d stared at all night. “That’s all I know for sure.”

“Well, you’re gonna have to start sleeping first, dummy,” Cara said, then leaned in for a long kiss.

“Mmm, deal.”

They spent the rest of the morning demonstrating how else Sam would like to wake up every day, before finally emerging to greet the day and the remainder of the crew that had been left behind on Bogano.

Cal, Cere, and Greez had gone off to some planet or another to meet some old friend or another who they thought could help with intel on Kamino. With their connections to clone troops back in the day there was a possibility of getting some info that way, but it seemed like a long shot. Information on the secluded oceanic planet wasn’t easy to come by -- it had even been absent from the Jedi archives for years before the Clone Wars.

Which is why when they returned that afternoon with a data chip containing not only the structural readouts of a cloning facility but also a roster of everyone who worked there, Sam was shocked.

“Just how many favors do we owe now for you to have gotten this?” she asked as Cal inserted the chip into BD-1’s port to be read and projected onto the holotable.

“None, actually,” Cere said. “Called in ones that were owed to us by people on the inside.”

“Huh. Good thing we’ve been so darn helpful all these years,” Sam said as she studied the readouts. “Looks like security is pretty tight. How are we planning to get anywhere in there?”

“Won’t be a problem,” Cal answered. “Called in another favor to get clearance and IDs. May have to swipe a uniform or two on the way in, though.”

“Theft, huh?” Cara said, suddenly more interested in the conversation. “Now we’re talking.”

“Borrow,” Cere corrected. “May have to _borrow_ a uniform or two.”

The mercenary scoffed disappointedly.

“So we know how to get in but what are we going there for in the first place?” Mando asked, steering the conversation back on the right track.

“At this point we don’t know exactly what we’ll be able to do or find out,” Cal explained, “but getting to that doctor is our top priority. We go in, find him, get him to tell us everything he knows about the child.”

“And how do we do that last part?” Cara asked. Sam cleared her throat and waved. “Oh. Right.”

“Obviously we’ll give him the chance to talk first,” Cere said, patting Sam on the shoulder. “But if he’s not crazy about that idea, our secret weapon here will find out anyway.”

Cal called up the roster of employees at the facility. “Now all we have to do is figure out who he is.”

Being the only two who knew what the mysterious doctor looked like, Sam and the Mandalorian huddled together over the holographic pictures that flashed one by one from BD’s projector. They shook their heads at what felt like a hundred or more wrong faces, mostly plain-looking humans and long-necked Kaminoans ( _probably could have filtered those out_ , Sam thought). Just when the combination of her lack of rest and the monotony of the activity started to lull her to sleep, he appeared. Short dark hair and beard, dark eyes, round glasses, a slightly smirking expression. It was undoubtedly the same man she’d seen in Mando’s memory.

“There,” they said together, each pointing at the holograph.

BD stopped scrolling and Cal stepped up to read the man’s biographical data.

“Congratulations, Dr. Pershing,” he said. “You’re the lucky winner.”

~

Sam would have preferred to get a good night’s sleep before embarking on the mission to Kamino, but Cal was insistent on leaving immediately in the stolen Imperial ship -- the one listed on their faked clearance.

He was also insistent that only he and Sam would be necessary for the mission, but Cara wouldn’t take no for an answer when she “asked” to come as well. She really was determined not to let Sam out of her sight again, and eventually he agreed to let her come along and keep the ship running in case they needed to make a quick exit.

The three of them took off, with half a plan and an agreement that they’d take shifts manning the cockpit for the long trip there. Cal took the first shift, allowing Sam and Cara the opportunity to sleep -- or at least try to, as the only way they could was sitting upright in the uncomfortable seats in the back. The mercenary had no trouble falling asleep that way, clearly accustomed to the strange position after years as a shock trooper and who knows what else. But once again Sam found herself unable to get relaxed enough to nod off. And the lack of a bed was only part of the problem.

She returned to the cockpit, finding Cal there tinkering with some of BD’s wiring as he often did when bored. He frowned when he saw her.

“It’s not your shift already, is it?” he asked with a glance at the chrono on his wrist.

“No, I just....can’t sleep,” Sam said, poking at various instruments as she stood behind the co-pilot’s seat.

“Why do I get the feeling you haven’t been sleeping much at all lately?”

“You’re a pretty perceptive guy.”

“Not as perceptive as you, unfortunately,” Cal said. “So what’s got you up all the time?”

Sam chuckled dryly. “Somethin’ about uhh, cheating death,” she said, finally leaving all the buttons alone to look at him. “Just doesn’t seem to be sitting right with me.”

“That’s natural,” said the auburn-haired Jedi with a supportive half-smile, and she realized he probably knew from experience. “I’m sure it’ll get better.”

“Yeah,” Sam said distantly, then went back to absentmindedly touching things. “I’ve also been...thinking a lot about stuff.”

“Stuff?”

“You said we’d talk about Cara and me later.” She turned back to look shyly at her master. “Is it later enough?”

Cal was silent for a second before gesturing to the empty seat beside him.

“Sit down,” he invited her, and she did. “You’re a really good Jedi, Sam. You always have been. Sure, you’re a little hard-headed, a little unfocused. But your heart’s always been in the right place, and that’s the most important thing.”

“Feels like I’ve let you down, though. Because I couldn’t....let go,” Sam admitted as she fiddled with a loose piece of metal on the armrest of the chair. Her failure to let go of Alderaan and the people she’d lost had been ongoing for years, and he’d mostly come to accept it by now. But she couldn’t help but feel that it was different now that Cara was in the picture.

Cal sat silently, staring out the viewport at the endless void of space through which they were traveling. He continued staring as he spoke.

“Have I ever told you about what happened in the Tomb of Kujet?”

“On Dathomir? Where you found the astrium?” Sam had of course heard the story of how he and Cere had come to be traveling together, when they’d retrieved a holocron full of names of Force-sensitive children -- most likely hers had been included, but they’d destroyed it to keep them all safe from the Empire so there was no way to know. The mission had taken them to half a dozen worlds, including Dathomir, where they’d eventually added Merrin to the crew.

“Yeah,” Cal confirmed. “But before that I had...an experience there. A vision. Of my master.”

“Master Tapal? No, you never told me that part,” she knew his master had died during the Purge, at the end of the Clone Wars, but she’d never heard about any vision of him.

“I’ve never liked to talk about it,” he admitted. “But that’s where I finally came to terms with what happened to him. Where I accepted that it wasn’t my fault he died. That I hadn’t let him down...” He paused thoughtfully, then looked at her. “I wasn’t a perfect padawan either, Sam. There’s no such thing. But just because we aren’t perfect doesn’t mean we’re a disappointment. I didn’t let down Master Tapal by not being able to save him, and you haven’t let me down by loving someone.”

Sam didn’t realize until just then that she’d been holding her breath. She let it go in a long, relieved exhale.

“But....the Code...” she said tentatively. Even if Cal wasn’t disappointed in her, he could still feel he had an obligation to make her uphold the Jedi Code, to forbid her from giving in to her desires and attachments or expel her from their ranks if she refused.

But he just sighed and shook his head.

“The Code...all the rules...it didn’t help the Order survive, did it? It didn’t help them stop an evil empire from taking over the galaxy. And who did stop the Empire eventually? Just people. People fighting for each other, fighting for what they loved.” He paused and looked out the viewport again. “The opposite of evil, Sam, the opposite of hate...it isn’t just the absence of hate. It’s the presence of compassion. Of love. If we really care about resisting evil in the galaxy, shouldn’t we do whatever we can to preserve the love in it? Shouldn’t I?”

He looked back at her and smiled and Sam could have cried. But she fought it.

“So you’re...you’re not gonna kick us out of the crew after all this?”

“Sam,” he said with a slight laugh, shaking his head, “I could never kick you out of this _family_.”

That time, she didn’t fight it.

~

Cara woke to a persistently annoying beeping coming from Sam’s wrist. The Jedi had set an alarm to remind her when to relieve Cal of his duties in the cockpit, but she appeared to be sleeping right through it.

The mercenary rolled her eyes at her girlfriend’s ability to ignore any kind of sound while asleep but inside she was glad Sam was finally getting some rest. She switched off the alarm gently so as not to wake her, deciding just to take the next shift herself.

She knocked softly on the entryway to the cockpit to get Cal’s attention. “Hey. Sam’s finally getting some sleep so I’m gonna take this shift.”

“Oh, good to hear. Come on, BD,” he said, and the little droid hopped on his back as he stood. He was almost out of the cockpit when Cara turned in the co-pilot’s chair to call out to him.

“Cal? Can I ask you something?” She wasn’t even sure what she wanted to ask him. They’d never had a one-on-one conversation before. Cara was thankful for him and the role he’d played in Sam’s life while they had been separated, but she’d yet to see a reason to bond with him herself. He always seemed sort of uptight, demanding, not her style and definitely a little too tough on his apprentice in her admittedly biased opinion. If anything was going to keep Sam apart from her, it wasn’t going to be a blaster bolt from one of Gideon’s men, it would be Cal and that damned Jedi Code. “What’s so bad about Sam and me being together? What are you afraid of?”

To her surprise, he laughed.

“Popular subject,” he quipped to the droid on his shoulder. He shook his head and sat back down in the pilot’s seat. “What am I afraid of....no one’s ever asked me that. But you’re right, I have always been afraid.”

Cara watched him as he stared off at nothing, his eyes squinting shut as if he was remembering something painful. He continued quietly.

“I’ve been afraid ever since I joined this crew, ever since our first mission to find the holocron,” he said, and rather than asking what that was, she made a mental note to find out from Sam later. Cal looked at her seriously. “I’ve always been afraid that one day I’d lead a padawan down a dark path. I’ve worried that I wouldn’t be a good enough master, that I wouldn’t do right by them, that I wouldn’t teach them the right things. All the kids I’ve taught turned out okay, I think, despite my worrying. But it’s always been even harder with Sam. She’s special. I know you know that better than anybody.”

“She is...” Cara agreed carefully, unsure where this was going.

“And since your world was lost....I’ve felt like I needed to try harder to protect her than I had for any of the others. I thought if anything could turn someone to the Dark Side, it would be that,” he said, dropping his eyes to his lap. “So I tried and tried to get her to let go. But you know Sam. The more I want her to do something, the more she wants to do the opposite.”

“That’s not exclusive to you,” the mercenary interjected. “Or her, for that matter. More of an innate Alderaanian character flaw.”

He laughed. “So I’m realizing. Anyway...when you came back into her life, it scared me all over again. I knew there was no way she could let go now. I thought you two getting together would lead her down that dark path I always feared, like the Code says, and I stopped seeing anything but that for a while. But,” he said, looking back up at her, “I’ve come to realize it’s just the opposite. Holding on to Alderaan and you, fighting for that, it’s made her a better Jedi. You make each other stronger and better.”

Cara was surprised at all the words coming out of his mouth, words she’d never expected to hear when she’d asked the question.  
“So, wait. You’re...okay with this?”

“Guess you were asleep when she went back there again, huh?” he asked, and her face scrunched in confusion. “I just had this same talk with Sam. Short answer, yes. In fact, I’m happy for you.”

He smiled at her and got up again, prepared to leave her sitting there quietly stunned. But he turned around just before getting all the way out of the cockpit.

“But,” he said, “if you ever do anything to hurt her, you’ll probably see the dark side of at least a few of us in your new family.”

Cara was still shocked, but she managed to smile at his words.

“Won’t be a problem,” she promised, and he believed her.

~

Sam was gently roused from the first decent sleep she’d had in weeks by the feeling of soft lips on hers. She blinked her eyes open to find Cara’s staring back at her.

“Time to get up, we’re almost there.”

“Um, not that I’m complaining,” Sam mumbled, slowly waking up as ordered, “but what’s with that approach to waking me up?”

Cara smirked as she adjusted the gloves she was at work putting on along with the rest of her usual armor. “Just in a good mood. Had a nice chat with Cal while you were out.”

“Oh yeah, me too. I mean, when you were out,” the Jedi said, suddenly aware that her talk with her master hadn’t been a dream. “So, great news--”

“I know,” Cara cut her off, then took her face in her hands to kiss her passionately. Sam rose from her seat so as to properly return the favor.

“Okayyy,” Cal’s voice startled them as he entered the hold. “Just because you have my blessing now doesn’t mean you have to flaunt it.”

“Yes it does,” the younger Jedi argued. “That’s exactly what that means.”

He rolled his eyes humorously and gestured toward the cockpit. “Go land this thing before I start having second thoughts.”

Sam gave Cara one more kiss before going to do as she was told. She brought the ship down on the assigned landing platform using the clearance code obtained from Cere’s contacts, then quickly returned to go over their plan one last time before heading out with Cal.

Inside the facility, their first priority was procuring uniforms to blend in. Cal had left poncho-less and Sam was similarly without her vest, but they still looked wildly out of place. But before it could be a problem the elder Jedi was able to mind-trick a pair of humans into handing over their clothes, and all that was left to worry about was getting to Pershing without anyone calling into question the two practically naked people now roaming around the place.

Over their comms, Cara guided them through the facility to where the structural readouts indicated Pershing’s office would be. “One more left, then a right and you’re there.”

“Got it,” Cal muttered back to her. “Have BD keep a lookout for us and make sure the ship’s ready for a quick turnaround just in case.”

“Copy that.”

“I’m glad we brought her,” he said to his apprentice.

“Get in line, old man.”

Once they located Pershing’s office they paused and looked around. With the rest of the corridor clear of onlookers, Cal waved his hand to open the door. The man inside jumped in surprise at the sudden movement and the two people who quickly stepped inside his office without invitation.

“Good morning, Dr. Pershing,” Cal greeted him.

“Wh-who are you?” the man asked, nervously standing up from his desk. “I wasn’t expecting anyone here.”

“We’re just a couple of new friends who’d like to have a chat with you, that’s all,” Sam said.

Pershing gulped audibly and backed himself against the wall. “You’re with the remnant?” he asked. “Moff Gideon sent you? I don’t know where the child is, I swear.”

Sam scoffed.

“We are _not_ Imps. Do we look like Imps?” she asked, pointing to herself and her master. She turned to Cal. “I mean I know I wore that stormtrooper armor well but—“

“Sam. Focus.”

“Right. Look, Gideon didn’t send us. And we know you don’t know where the child is.”

“It just so happens we do,” Cal added. “We’re hoping you could tell us a few things about him. Starting with why you and the Imps wanted him.”

Pershing’s eyes widened. “You know where he is? Does the Mandalorian still have him?”

“Maybe,” Sam said. “Answer the question. What did you and the Imps want with the child?”

“Those are...those are two different answers,” the doctor stammered.

The Jedi looked at each other.

“Explain,” demanded Cal.

“I-I was only trying to save him. I wasn’t going to let them hurt him or bring him back here.”

Sam was confused by his words and tired of listening to him, so she went straight to the source. Reaching out with the Force into his mind, she felt his true intentions. He had only tried to keep the kid safe, wanted to bring him somewhere that Gideon wouldn’t find him.

“He’s telling the truth,” she told Cal.

“What, how do you know that?” Pershing asked.

“Because I’m a Jedi, that’s how.”

He gasped with delighted relief. “You’re...you’re like him. And you’re trying to protect him too?”

“Yes,” Cal said. “Now tell us everything you know.”

“I’ll tell you,” the doctor said. “But first you have to get me out of here. You have to take me with you.”

Sam and Cal shared another look. She shook her head.

“This crew just keeps gettin’ bigger.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All full chapters are now written! Two more after this, plus the epilogue (which is not finished but will be this week). Would love to hear y'all's thoughts here or on tumblr!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this whole chapter sounds like a YouTube fan theory video, that's because.....it basically is five of them combined. I tried to make it entertaining at least. Also sorry it's short.

It wasn’t until they dropped out of hyperspace on the return trip from Kamino that Sam and Cal realized they’d forgotten to radio back to the base about what a turn the mission had taken. But by then it was pretty much too late.

“First of all, what happened to borrowing uniforms?” Cere admonished the pair of returning Jedi once they landed on Bogano. “And secondly, when did the plan change from questioning to kidnapping?”

“We can explain,” Sam said as she exited the ship along with Cara, Cal, and the doctor. Cere looked at her with an eyebrow raised expectantly, crossing her arms. “I mean, uh...Cal can explain?”

“Actually, I think I should explain,” Pershing said, stepping forward.

“Damn right you should,” Mando agreed harshly, pointing his blaster at the man’s head. He yelled at Sam and Cal. “Why did you bring him here? He’s with them!”

Cara caught him as he stomped toward the man.

“He’s not, Mando,” Sam said, looking him straight in the helmet. “Trust me. He’s on our side.”

“How? You saw him, he was working with the Imp.”

“It was just an act,” Pershing said. “I had to act like I was doing what they wanted so that I could get him back.”

“Yeah, and what were you going to do with him when you got him?”

“I was going to get him somewhere safe. I was going to save him,” the doctor said calmly.

The Mandalorian slowly backed out of Cara’s grasp and looked to Sam. She nodded. “Let’s hear him out, okay?”

Mando agreed to hold off on killing the man long enough to hear his story, and they all migrated from the landing pad into the _Mantis_ , where Greez got to work on preparing a meal for 10. The group gathered in relative silence, all nervously anticipating the conversation to come, pondering the answers to the questions they’d waited months to ask. Finally they sat shoulder-to-shoulder in the cramped common area, the child snoozing away in Mando’s lap while the doctor bounced his leg anxiously.

“Okay,” said Cere. “Start from the beginning. What is this little guy?”

Pershing looked at the small green alien for a moment before responding.

“If you’re asking me what species he is, I’m afraid I still don’t know,” he said. “That was never of much importance, mostly because he wasn’t born of them.”

“Wasn’t born? What do you mean he wasn’t born?” Cara asked.

“He was engineered,” the doctor said. “A clone. He was our proof of concept.”

Silent looks were shared around the circle as the information settled in. No wonder they’d never been able to find anyone who knew about him. No wonder his powers seemed out of the ordinary for an untrained Jedi. No wonder Sam had been unable to reach into his mind. It was all the way he’d been made. With that one question answered, a hundred new ones sprang up.

“Wait, what concept? What is he proof of?” Cal inquired.

“That we could engineer Force-sensitive beings from just the genetic material of other ones,” Pershing said, and the Jedi collectively sucked in a trepidatious breath. “Around 25 years ago, Imperial scientists at my facility used the DNA of another one of his kind to create him. A very powerful Jedi master, I heard. They thought it would increase the chances of success.”

Sam stared at the child and let out an ironic laugh. “He really is baby Yoda....”

Cal was less amused. “How? How did they get Master Yoda’s DNA?”

“This was long before I began to work there,” said the doctor, “but I’ve heard it was harvested from some article of clothing left behind on Coruscant after a confrontation with the Emperor.”

“Hold on,” said the Mandalorian. “You say this happened 25 years ago? That can’t be right, I thought he was 50.”

“Age acceleration is a common practice in clone engineering,” Cere explained.

“Yes. And they knew this species ages incredibly slowly,” Pershing added. “So his development was accelerated to take place twice as fast. But even with that, it will be years before he comes of age. Which is part of the reason Gideon and his men have been so eager to get him back.”

“Meaning?” Sam prompted.

The doctor paused and took a deep breath before continuing.

“A couple of years ago, not long after I began my work with him at the facility, the experiments started to grow more intense. They basically began to torture him, to record his responses to pain and stress, find out the extent of his abilities. An innocent child...”

The eyes of all the crew members followed the doctor’s to land on said child. Sam’s heart hurt for him. To be so small and helpless and be treated that way by such evil people...it must have been there that he’d learned to tap into the Dark Side, she thought, to defend himself. As concerning as that continued to be, she couldn’t fault him. With no one to teach him the dangers of it, how was he supposed to know the difference?

Pershing continued his story as she pondered.

“I couldn’t take part in it or sit back and watch anymore. I arranged to have him ‘stolen’ and taken off Kamino.” He looked at Mando and the child. “I was the one who set him up on Arvala-7 with the Nikto mercenaries. I thought he would be safe enough there while I tried to figure out a better place for him, but Gideon knew that losing him would set back their work by decades. So he had his subordinates send every bounty hunter in the Outer Rim after him.”

“And you planned to take him away again after I brought him in?” the Mandalorian asked.

“Yes. I’d tracked down the Rebellion hero Luke Skywalker and was going to take the child to him, but then you returned and I never got the chance.”

“Wait, you know where Luke Skywalker is?” Cal questioned.

“Vaguely,” Pershing admitted, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “I’d heard he’s starting to rebuild the Jedi Order, that he’s taking on apprentices to train. I thought there would be no one better to take care of this one. Of course, I had no idea about you all.”

“We’re doing something right, then,” Cere commented. “I am curious, though. What other work has been set back since the child was taken? You say they had their proof of concept already, so what made it so urgent that he be returned?”

With that, the doctor’s demeanor grew dark. Sam could feel fear radiating off him.

“Because,” he began, “that was all just phase one of their plan. And the next phase was vital to the rebuilding of the Empire.”

Everyone froze in place. Except for Sam, who leaned forward so as to hear better. “I’m sorry, did you just say ‘rebuilding the Empire’?”

“Didn’t those bastards get the message the first time?” Cara muttered, her face etched with stone-cold anger.

“They’ve never not been planning a comeback,” Pershing said. “Palpatine had a long list of contingency plans. Most of them failed after his death, but this one....the one Gideon’s overseeing, there’s still a chance of it succeeding. If they get the child back.”

“How?” asked Cal. “How can one child bring back an entire empire?”

“I told you, he’s the proof of concept,” the doctor said grimly. “They engineered one Force-sensitive clone, and now they want to use him to manufacture an entire army of them.”

“An army of...tiny green soldiers that take decades to come of age?” Sam wondered aloud, hoping the ridiculousness of the visual would help ease her discomfort over what had just been revealed. It didn’t.

“Not exactly,” Pershing said. “The next phase involved combining the child’s genetic material with that of humans. We’d already started experimenting with it and having success, inserting midi-chlorians from his cells into human test subjects, finding the potential for Force powers in them.”

“You can do that?” Cere asked. “Extract midi-chlorians alone?”

“It’s a complicated process but yes. And once there were successful infusions made, they would begin cloning those humans. Without access to the child though, those experiments have been put on hold. Which delays not only the Force-army manufacturing that the Emperor planned but also....” he paused, looking gravely around at the group, “Gideon’s personal project.”

“I don’t think I want to know what that means,” Sam commented.

“I do,” said Cal and Mando in unison.

The doctor sighed heavily before responding.

“Gideon doesn’t just want to be in charge of an army of Force-users,” he said. “He wants to be one himself.”

Sam sat back in her seat as all the air left the room. There was no ridiculous visual that would take away the discomfort of that announcement.

~

To Greez’s chagrin, no one had much of an appetite after Pershing’s revelation. They all tried their best to look like they were enjoying the food they picked at for the Latero’s benefit, but it was a futile attempt.

Unable to keep up the ruse, Sam excused herself to go outside and get some fresh air. She stood alone on the edge of the landing platform overlooking the rest of their base, watching the suns sink below the horizon and thinking about how unfair it all was. It hadn’t been more than a day since Cal had given her relationship with Cara his blessing, not even a month since she’d been brought back from the brink of death. And now they were being thrust into a bigger fight than they could ever be ready for. Even if they hopped from planet to planet to hide the kid, one day Gideon and his men would catch up to them. And when that day came, there wouldn’t be much they could do to stop him.

She shook her head at the cruelty of it all as she sensed someone approaching from behind. Her mind relaxed a few degrees when she realized it was Cara.

“Scared, Cardell?” the mercenary asked with an almost inappropriate levity as she wrapped a strong arm around Sam’s waist and joined her in staring off toward the suns.

Sam had to laugh as she put her own arm around Cara’s shoulders. “Am I scared? A ruthless wannabe-dictator is hunting us down so he can create an unstoppable army of Force-sensitive soldiers -- and turn himself into one -- thereby irrevocably leaving the Force unbalanced and bringing about a war that would end everything we spent most of the last decade fighting _another_ war for,” she said, then looked the other woman in the eye. “Of course I’m scared.”

Cara gave her a sympathetic smile before bringing her all the way in for a hug. “Me too.”

The Jedi held onto her as tightly as she could, unwilling to risk ever letting go. They stayed that way for at least a full minute before she spoke again. “Do you think it’s too late to run away?”

“I do,” Cara said, breaking out of her grasp but joining their hands. “But I know you don’t actually want to do that anyway.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Sam admitted. As scary as it was, and as much as she wished they could just walk away from it all, there was no way she would leave the rest of their families to fight this on their own. And neither would Cara. That wasn’t their way. “Just kinda wish we could pause everything for a little bit before it all goes to hell.”

Her girlfriend looked at her with a playful smirk. “Well, we could always go hide out in our cave while everybody else figures out what to do next.”

Sam laughed at the suggestion before a rush of inspiration crashed into her like the river crashed down at the bottom of the waterfall. She took Cara’s face in her hands and kissed her.

“You’re a genius.”

The Jedi practically sprinted back to the _Mantis_ and planted herself in front of the doctor, who still sat with Cal, Cere, and Mando.

“Gideon still doesn’t know it was you who arranged to have the kid taken from the facility, right?” she asked him.

“I wouldn’t still be alive if he did.”

“So if you were to contact him and tell him you had access to the child, he’d trust you?”

“‘Trust’ might be too strong of a word,” Pershing admitted, “but I don’t think he’d be suspicious.”

“And how much does he actually know about using the Force?”

“Aside from the fact that it’ll make him more powerful? Not much.”

“Where’s this going, Sam?” Cal wondered.

“We can’t keep hiding from this guy, Cal,” she answered in a voice filled with equal parts dread and determination. “He won’t stop until he gets what he wants. And since what he wants is all of us either dead or being used as midi-chlorian farms....I say we lure him into a fight he’s not ready for.”

Mando shook his helmeted head. “No. You saw his forces on the star cruiser. We don’t have the manpower to beat him.”

“Yeah, I think I know that better than anyone,” Sam replied with a gesture to the area on her abdomen that should have had a hole in it. “Which is why I know we can’t wait around for him to catch up to us. But if we trick him into coming here thinking he’s just going to pick up the kid, which wouldn’t require all his forces, we can ambush him.”

“He does travel lighter when he’s not expecting to get his hands dirty...” the doctor said. But the rest just continued to look at her skeptically, so she continued.

“Look, you’re right. We’ll still probably be out-gunned and out-manned. But we’d have two ships, three Jedi, a pair of practically unkillable warriors, a magic witch, home-field advantage, and the element of surprise. Plus,” she said, pausing to look in Cara’s direction before continuing to the rest of them, “we know a safe place where we could hide the kid until the coast is clear.”

Cara nodded slowly, finally seeing where Sam was going. “She’s right. There’s a cave. We put him in there with Greef and Dr. Four Eyes and seal it up until it’s done, they’ll never find him.”

Pershing threw his hands up in indignation at his new nickname but was ignored.

“Alright,” Cal agreed first. “I’m in.”

He looked to Cere, who nodded, then they all turned to Mando. The kid was still sound asleep in the bend of his arm. He peered down at him and gently stroked one of his oversized ears before speaking softly.

“I like those odds,” he said, then looked up at Sam. “What’s the plan?”

She grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter and epilogue coming later this week. Thanks for reading, y'all.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp. Here we go. Final showdown. Hope it doesn't suck.

The day of reckoning came far too quickly for Sam’s taste.

Only hours after she laid out her plan -- and the others gave their input -- Pershing sent off a transmission to Moff Gideon saying he’d figured out a way to find the Jedi and the child by tracking them through the Force. That wasn’t actually a thing he or anybody else could do, but he was confident the moff was ignorant of that fact. The doctor told him the Mandalorian and the Jedi had been killed trying to protect the child and that he planned to have the baby brought back to Kamino immediately. But Gideon responded quickly with a message demanding that it not be moved, that he would be there in a standard day’s time to retrieve the child himself since no one in his cohort seemed able to handle such a task. Just as Sam had predicted.

Upon being proven right so quickly, she wished she’d suggested they wait a few days to send the transmission, but there was no going back now. Now all she could do was lie in bed with Cara and hold her close, praying and asking the Force not to let it be the last time. It was only a matter of hours before Gideon would arrive for his treasure, and they should have been either still sleeping or starting to get ready for the fight. But neither of those things seemed even half as important as spending those moments together. They were confident in the plan, in the team, in each other, but this would still be a battle. And there were no sure things in battle.

Cara eventually broke the silence that had filled the room since they woke up from their half-hearted slumber, and Sam thought she might have been getting her own mind read for once.

“Well. No use avoiding it. This could very well be the last morning we get to wake up together,” the mercenary said, reaching for Sam’s hand and placing it over her own heart. “Anything you want to say to me?”

She looked up into the Jedi’s gray eyes, which shined back at her tearfully. Sam tried to chuckle through it as she spoke.

“Only about a million things,” she said.

No matter how many more mornings they got, she didn’t think she’d ever be able to adequately express her feelings for the woman beside her. She couldn’t possibly explain well enough how, ever since that first day they met back on Alderaan, even just the thought of Cara grounded her when she felt adrift, how she made her want to go out every day and do something to make her proud. There was no way to stress enough how purely, intensely happy she was every second they spent together, no matter what else was going on around them. It would have taken every morning from then until the collapse of the galaxy to tell her everything. But even if they survived today, they would never have that kind of time.

“Start with one,” Cara suggested.

“Okay. One...” Sam began, but even narrowing them all down to one was nearly impossible. She thought about the months since they’d reunited, all the confusion she’d felt and the obstacles they’d faced. She wouldn’t have traded any of it. It was all a part of them, of their story. The only thing she wished was that it had happened sooner. But even though the time had been limited, there was no doubt in her mind that it had been the best time of her life. She leaned in to kiss her tenderly before speaking. “No matter what today brings, getting you back in my life was the greatest thing that ever happened to me.”

Cara looked down to where her hand grazed lightly over Sam’s abdomen, where just weeks ago she’d watched what should have been a fatal wound recede into nothing.

“You sure?” she asked softly, and Sam lifted her chin so their eyes met again.

“Positive,” she said with a warm smile. “No second thoughts.”

“Good,” Cara said, then took her by the back of the neck and kissed her fervently. After almost a minute she stopped, keeping their foreheads pressed together. “I love you, Sammy.”

Sam closed her eyes and took a relaxed breath. “I love you too, Cara.”

With that, the former shock trooper’s dark eyes grew hungry. She kissed Sam again before rolling on top of her and looking down with a lustful expression and one more demand for their possible last morning together.

“Show me.”

~

Sam’s mind was clear and focused as she meditated one last time in the ancient Zeffo vault.

For the first time in her life, she felt fully, completely one with the Force. All this time she’d spent as a padawan and as a Jedi she’d believed she already was. It wasn’t until now that she realized she’d been wrong all along. A small part of her had been resistant, but now she trusted it fully, accepted that it would show her the way through what was about to happen, whatever that might be.

After her morning with Cara, they’d done the last preparations around the camp and then took Pershing, Karga, and the child to get them settled in the cave. Mando had gone along as well, and it was a difficult and emotional thing having to pry him away in the end. For a moment his confidence in the plan had wavered and he suggested he just take the kid and run himself. But Cara gave him some tough love and Sam told him to trust her, the way he had after he’d tackled her off the _Mantis_ on Nevarro. That seemed to get through to him.

Now she had to earn that trust. And the only way to do it was to trust entirely in the Force herself.

At the moment it was telling her someone else was entering the vault and, to her surprise, that it was Cal. Sam opened her eyes to see him come in and stood up from her kneeling position.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt,” he said, but she waved off his apology.

“It’s fine, I was just finishing up. Can’t say I expected to see you in here, though.”

She watched as he slowly looked around the vault. There wasn’t much to see, but it was clear he was taking in more than just the dusty surface of the floor and the sloped metal walls. This place was more to him than the physical space.

“I didn’t expect to be here,” he admitted. “Haven’t been inside for years. Just felt a pull to it, though.”

“From the Force?”

Cal nodded as he moved cautiously toward the shattered glass wall. He placed his hand on it reverently and studied his reflection, repeated a thousand times in the individual shards.

“It’s been well over a decade since I was shown a possible future here,” he said quietly, “but I remember it like it was yesterday. I saw myself failing as a master, letting the younglings in my care fall into the hands of the Empire. After that I knew we couldn’t use the holocron to find you all. I had to destroy it to keep you safe, to give you a choice and the ability to find out your destiny on your own.”

“It still found some of us before we found it,” Sam interjected, thinking back to her last day on Alderaan.

“Sure. But you still had the option to turn it away,” Cal reminded her before pausing thoughtfully. “If you had to do it again, would you make a different choice?”

It was a question Sam had pondered many times over the years, never really coming up with a solid answer one way or another. But in that moment she spoke without hesitation.

“No. I wouldn’t,” she said. “I know this is where the Force wants me to be.”

Cal nodded slowly and finally turned around to face her.

“Good,” he said, then paced around a while before speaking again. “You know, I wonder a lot where the Force has taken the rest of the names on the holocron, the ones we didn’t find. What are they doing now? Are they safe? Do they know what they are? I’ve been just as afraid for them as I have been for the ones we trained, as I have been for you. Okay well, maybe not quite as afraid as I was for you.”

“Sorry I was a pain,” Sam said with a smile, which he returned.

“No, it’s good. The fear kept me focused on trying my hardest for all of you,” Cal mused, before looking seriously at his former padawan. “The ability to embrace your own fear will be an important thing to learn when you become a master, Sam.”

The younger Jedi could only scoff in response. “Me? A master?”

“Of course. Why not?”

“Because, I’m....I...” she couldn’t get a reason out, but Cal provided one.

“Because you’re in a relationship with someone and violating the Jedi Code?”

“Well...yeah.”

“Sam, we spent months searching every world we could think of with a Jedi temple and you know what we found? Nothing. No artifacts, no texts, nothing at all that spelled out the Code. In fact, for all you know, Cere and I could have made the whole thing up,” he said with a smile, and she decided not to point out that she could have in a matter of seconds found memories of him studying it as a child. “The Jedi of this generation don’t have to look like the ones I was taught by. There’s no reason we can’t write our own code.”

For a moment Sam could only stare at him as his words took root in her mind. If what he said was true, she would never have to choose between her two destinies. They could start the Order anew, she could be a master, _and_ she could be with Cara. If they did it right, she could have it all. And if anyone could do it right, it would be her and Cal. Slowly she began to nod and smile back.

“Alright,” she said. “I like the sound of that.”

Suddenly they each heard Cere’s calm voice over the comms in their ears.

“It’s time. Places, everyone.”

Somewhere along their conversation Sam had nearly forgotten completely about the impending battle. The two of them slipped out of the vault and made their way to their assigned spot to await Gideon’s arrival.

They joined Cara in one of the small, hole-ridden buildings on the mesa adjacent to the landing platform, where they could hide but still see whatever ships would land next to the stolen Imperial vessel parked there as the decoy. Cere was inside that ship, keeping an eye on the scanners, while Greez and Merrin had been assigned to the _Mantis_. The Nightsister used her magick to cloak the ship, making it invisible both to the naked eye and any scanning equipment Gideon’s men would have.

“What’ve we got, Cere?” Cal asked once they were settled into the cramped space.

“Looks like two ships entering atmo,” the eldest Jedi responded. “Transport size, probably troop carriers.”

“Just like Nevarro,” Sam pointed out, and Cara and Cal both nodded optimistically. The two carriers' worth of troops had been enough to cause them problems the first time, when they had been the ones caught off-guard, but if that’s all it was now, they should have no trouble taking care of Gideon.

But Cere’s voice came back again in short order. “Wait...this doesn’t make sense.”

“What?” Cal prompted.

“I’ve got a TIE fighter comin’ in. I didn’t think those had lightspeed capabilities.”

“That’s Gideon,” Pershing stated, his transmission coming in full of static due to the distance between them and the cave where he was hidden with Karga and the child. “He has his TIEs specially made. Likes to be able to make an entrance wherever he goes.”

“Leave him to me,” the Mandalorian advised from his own hiding spot in a different section of the base.

“That’s not part of the plan, Mando,” Sam reminded him. But her words were drowned out by the sound of the ships approaching.

They peered through the rusty holes of the structure to see one of the transports making its approach to the landing pad, the other not far behind. The instant the first ship touched down next to their stolen one, an explosion rocked the Bogano sky, eliminating the second troop carrier altogether.

“Yes! Perfect shot, Greez!” Sam exclaimed. “Now get over to the waterfall and do the same to anyone but us that even thinks about going over there.”

“On it, kid,” the pilot replied. “May the Force be with you.”

“I kinda can’t believe that worked,” Cara said as they watched the stormtroopers pile out of the first transport and look to the sky in confusion. The TIE fighter finally made its appearance, zooming over their heads with a scream.

“Should I be offended by that?” Sam asked her. So far the plan was working as perfectly as she could have hoped. The transport ship took off again and seemed to be flying around aimlessly, looking for whatever had taken out its twin. The troopers still appeared lost, just as she wanted. “Okay Mando, you’re up.”

The next step in the plan was for the Mandalorian to fly out of his hiding spot with the jetpack and take the troopers by surprise with whatever combination of blaster and flame thrower he felt was appropriate. But several seconds after Sam’s cue, he was still nowhere to be seen.

“Mando? You awake?” Cara prodded. “Time to go, man.”

The TIE screamed overhead again and Sam realized what was about to happen even before he said it.

“I want Gideon,” the masked man stated calmly, and suddenly they saw him shoot up out of a sinkhole and after the fighter.

Cara cursed profusely, speaking for all of them, as they watched him chase Gideon’s TIE. In the meantime, the stormtroopers realized they now had something to do besides stand around and began taking aim at the flying Mandalorian. It didn’t seem like the smartest move to Sam, considering most of their wayward shots were closer to hitting their boss’s ship than Mando, but if that was how this was all going to end, she wasn’t going to complain.

“What the hell’s going on out there?” Cere asked over the comms.

“Improvisation, apparently,” Cal responded. “Stand by.”

Sam had seen Mando’s memory of him taking down Gideon’s TIE fighter back on Nevarro, so she knew he was capable of doing it again -- despite it not being part of the plan. But his efforts were going to waste this time. The fighter was too fast, staying just out of reach of his grappling cable. The Imp must have learned something from their last meeting.

The TIE came around for a pass over the landing platform with Mando still on its tail -- just before Sam could call out to him about what a bad idea that was. One of the stormtroopers’ blaster shots finally found its mark with the close proximity, damaging the Mandalorian’s jetpack and sending the attached man hurtling down in a freefall.

Without a second thought, Sam ran out of the building and stretched her hands skyward to where Mando was falling. She felt the Force surrounding them, between them, between Mando and his inevitably fatal meeting with the ground, and used it to slow his descent. Rather than falling like a rock between the mesas, he floated down like a feather onto the solid ground of the one she and the others were hiding on. Or, more accurately, the one she’d _been_ hiding on.

_Blast it_.

A flurry of laser fire began to rain down on them in seconds, and all at once it was game on. The hiding place no longer viable, Cara and Cal emerged and joined the unplanned firefight.

“Cere, I think it’s time we get some air support,” the red-headed Jedi called out. “Keep Gideon occupied, would you?”

“Took the words right out of my mouth,” she replied, and they saw the stolen Imp ship take off from the landing platform to give chase to the TIE.

On the ground, Sam and Cal gave cover to Cara and Mando as they returned fire at the stormtroopers, of which there were more than Sam had initially thought. Even with one of their ships already eliminated, there were still a couple dozen of them, and fighting off all their fire wasn’t something she and Cal could sustain forever.

The blaster shots slowed for a moment as the troop carrier returned to the landing platform and about half the troopers climbed aboard.

“The hell are they doing?” Cara asked as she watched the ship fly over their heads -- then land on the other side of the same mesa, surrounding them. “Oh.”

“Is it just me, or are things not going well out there?” Greef Karga’s voice asked over the comm system.

“Shut up!” replied no less than three voices simultaneously.

Sam did have to admit that the plan was pretty well out the window at this point, but there was no time to resent that. She moved to continue covering Cara as the former shock trooper began firing at the Imps that had been dropped off behind them. The scream of the TIE overhead almost distracted her. An explosion shortly afterward did distract her.

She looked up to see the flaming TIE go down in a spiral on the mesa to her right. Luckily the troopers had been distracted by it as well, and Cara took the opportunity to mow down nearly all of them with a sustained attack from her favorite rifle.

“Please tell me that killed him this time,” the mercenary shouted hopefully.

“No such luck,” Cere replied from above. “Sam, Cal, get over there. Cara and Mando, I’ll cover you with the rest of these bucketheads.”

With no bridges or other connections between the two platforms, the only way to get from where they were to where Gideon had crashed was to be a Jedi with Force-enhanced physical abilities. Sam and Cal sprinted to the edge with their lightsabers still activated and leapt clear across to the other mesa, where the pilot of the crashed TIE fighter was already beginning to emerge.

Gideon climbed out of the spherical cockpit and on top of the grounded ship. He looked down on them with an almost gleeful glint in his eye. It made Sam’s skin crawl.

“Well, if it isn’t Cal Kestis, padawan of Master Jaro Tapal,” the man said and Sam glanced worriedly at her master, whose eyes narrowed as Gideon continued. “Yes, I’ve been doing my homework. I think you will make a fine addition to my collection of usable genetic material. As for you, Samira Cardell....I think it’s long past time you and Miss Dune joined the rest of your fellow Alderaanians.”

Sam’s grip tightened on her lightsaber and she all but growled her response.

“The name’s Sam. And I think it’s about time you joined your buddies on the Death Star. And the other one.”

Gideon’s mouth curled into an unsettling smile as he reached behind his back. When he brought his hand back to his side, it held what looked something like the hilt of a lightsaber.

“I thought you might say something to that effect,” he said, then pressed a button on the hilt, activating a buzzing black blade outlined in white light. “And I’m going to enjoy watching you regret it.”

Sam and Cal shared a look of confusion. _That definitely wasn’t part of the plan_.

As Gideon jumped from atop his ship, the Jedi attacked in unison, coming down with synchronized slashes toward his head. The move made it easy for the moff to block them both, denying their blades with one swift move of his black sword. Sam realized their mistake and decided to let Cal take the lead for the next try. He went in for a swipe at Gideon’s left side, and she followed quickly with one at his right, but he was fast enough to block each of their attacks. The moff went in for a strike of his own, whirling in a violent circle at head height for both of the Jedi. They ducked, and on the way back up Sam swung her lightsaber at his legs but once again found the man to be more agile than she expected as he jumped over her pale blue blade with ease.

Cal and Sam paused to reassess their strategy, now standing with the Imp between them. Gideon took the moment to grin coldly again.

“Not what you were expecting, am I?” he asked, but before either of them could make a smart retort he began lunging at Cal, hacking savagely at his head.

The elder Jedi blocked each of the blows as Sam rushed forward to catch up. Gideon’s attack had Cal off-balance, with no choice but to keep playing defense and backing up. He was nearly back to the edge of the mesa, where he and Sam had jumped to from their original spot. Behind him she could see Cara and Mando looking in their direction, apparently having already dispatched the remainder of the stormtroopers. Gideon took one more hack at Cal’s head before they reached the edge, but the red-haired man tucked and rolled past him back in Sam’s direction to avoid the swing.

The Jedi stood side by side again as Gideon twirled the black blade in his hand arrogantly.

“I may not have the power to use the Force yet, but I am still quite capable of dispatching you two amateurs,” the Imp gloated, sounding every bit the overconfident bully Sam had begun to think was all he really was. “And once I do, there will be nothing to stop me from killing the rest of your friends, taking that child, and becoming the most powerful man in the galaxy.”

“Sure, man,” Sam replied with a bored tone. As she watched him stand there waiting for their next attack, she could sense the familiar rush in her ears. The same sound she’d first heard so long ago on Alderaan when another bully was threatening her, the same one she’d heard the first time she’d stood up to a group of stormtroopers. She knew just what to do with bullies like them. Sam glanced at Cal and nodded her head toward the moff. “You wanna do the honors?”

Her master shook his head. “He’s all yours.”

Gideon raised his black saber and beckoned her forward. “Come in whatever order you like, it won’t make a dif--”

His taunt was cut short as Sam reached out with her hands and used the Force to push him backward. The sudden impact of the invisible blow knocked the weapon from his hand as he sailed over the edge of the mesa and down, down into the bottomless canyon between the two columns of rock. The Jedi stepped forward and saw him fall, growing smaller and smaller as gravity took him, before disappearing altogether.

“Just because you can fight with a light sword doesn’t mean you can beat a Jedi,” Sam muttered as the man’s screams faded and she turned to watch Cal pick up said light sword. He inhaled sharply and grimaced as he held it, a telltale sign that he’d just gotten a Force echo from an object. When it faded, he looked immediately across the divide at the Mandalorian. “Cal? What is it?”

“Not entirely sure....” he responded, studying the sleek hilt as he turned it over in his hand. “But I’m glad this didn’t go over with him. It’s been in the wrong hands for too long.”

“And...whose hands is it supposed to be in?”

Cal looked back at the beskar-clad man across the way.

“A Mandalorian’s.”

~

It turned out Mando did know something of the mysterious weapon that Gideon had wielded -- the Darksaber, he called it -- but he was far too eager to get back to the child to bother explaining it any further.

Sam couldn’t blame him. On the list of things she wanted to do after they’d all somehow survived, finding out the history and significance of a weapon that had just been used to try to take her head off was near the bottom.

At the top of that list was getting some time alone with Cara, but that was going to have to wait. Greez had called for a celebratory meal immediately after they’d all been reunited again at the base of the waterfall. He’d parked the _Mantis_ right there and denied anyone from attempting to leave the vicinity before they could properly celebrate their victory. So for the meantime the Alderaanians settled for sitting on the bank of the river, watching the twin rainbows dance in the mist at the bottom of the waterfall.

Cara rested her head on Sam’s shoulder and the Jedi smiled as she joined their hands. They didn’t need to speak. There would actually, thankfully, be time for that later. For now it was enough just to be close to each other, to feel safe and comfortable by each other’s side. But their peaceful silence was soon interrupted by Mando’s voice yelling their names frantically. They turned around to see the child toddling hurriedly in their direction, seemingly intent on taking a swim in the river. Sam caught him as he passed and held him up in front of them.

“Woah there, little one,” she said as she tried to control his wiggling in her grasp. “Tryin’ to make your great escape?”

“Nah,” Cara answered for him, poking at his nose while he babbled nonsensically. “He just knows it’s time to play.”

Sam laughed and sat the child down on her leg to bounce him the way she knew he enjoyed. He cooed with delight and she found herself in awe of how happy he seemed, even after all he’d been through.

The Mandalorian appeared behind them and the child reached out for him.

“I think he wants to go for a swim, Mando,” Cara told him as he took the baby from Sam. “Why don’t you hop in?”

The helmeted man made sure the kid’s eyes were covered before making a rude gesture in return. He sat down with them and the playing and happy noises continued.

“Huh,” Sam said after a minute of watching the adorable spectacle.

“What?” Cara asked.

“I can get inside his head now.” She hadn’t really meant to, but after months of checking periodically for any changes in him she found herself doing it automatically. And for once she’d actually found his mind readable, the impenetrable fog from before having been mysteriously lifted.

“So what’s going on in there?”

Sam just smiled as she watched the little green clone stare adoringly at the man who’d saved him.

“Nothing we didn’t already know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue following right now, don't stop reading! (unless it's like 3 am or something in which case go to bed already)(if it's not 3 am and you feel like yelling at me about my poor attempt to write action, my dms are always open and I probably agree with you)


	13. Chapter 13

_**~two years later~** _

“ _Mantis_ to base. Hey Luke, we’ll be planet-side in a few hours. Better get the welcoming party ready.”

“Roger that, Sam. I know at least one little guy who’ll be ecstatic to see you all.”

Sam couldn’t help but smile at the thought of seeing the little green child again. It was always the biggest highlight of the crew’s trips back to the new Jedi temple. Two years earlier they’d brought him to Luke Skywalker, the last of their tasks after dealing with Moff Gideon. Finding the Rebellion hero had taken slightly longer than expected, and along the way they’d taken care of some other business -- returning the Darksaber to safe Mandalorian hands in the form of an armorer Mando knew, bringing Karga back to Nevarro to set up his Guild hive once again because “third time’s the charm,” reporting the Imperial remnant star cruiser to the New Republic, dropping Pershing back off on Kamino so he could continue working undercover against any nefarious clone-related plots.

At long last they’d located Luke and met up with him, explaining who they were and where they’d been and about all the Jedi they’d trained. He had been surprised to learn that there were so many more of them, having believed that Master Yoda had been the last surviving Jedi aside from himself, but he agreed at once that they should all be working as one. Together they vowed that they would teach the next generation differently, that instead of suppressing passion and fear, the newest Jedi would be taught to embrace their feelings and use them to do good.

Ever since then, the _Mantis_ crew had served as the seekers for the new Jedi Order, continuing to traverse the galaxy and recruit Force-sensitive younglings who wished to join. The child, however, remained at the base with Luke most of the time, and getting back to see him was always a treat, especially for the Mandalorian.

Sam set the autopilot and left the cockpit to go let him know the kid would be there waiting when they landed. She passed through the galley, where Greez was hard at work trying out a new recipe while he absentmindedly talked to his plants in the terrarium. In the common area she found Cal, Cere, and Merrin speaking to their newest recruits. Finally she found Mando in the engine room, engaged in yet another arm-wrestling contest with Cara while a dark-haired pre-teen with a slight build watched them intently. She bent down next to the boy and joined in watching.

“Who’s winning, Dash?”

“I don’t think anyone is, Master.”

“Typical,” Sam said. “Too bad neither of them is a Jedi, huh?”

The boy turned to her with a grin and she winked at him. Despite years of doubting that she’d ever be one at all, much less a good one, Sam found she loved being a Jedi Master more than anything she’d ever been. She was pretty sure her style of teaching and guiding her young padawan would have been frowned upon by the masters of previous generations, but Dash would never know the difference. And as long as she continued to follow Cal’s good example, she knew it would all work out. She knew it was no accident that the Force had brought her to him.

They weren’t even on a seeking assignment when they’d met Dash a year ago. Sam and Cara had been taking some time off, some time to themselves for once, and had visited the colony of New Alderaan, where many of their fellow survivors had ended up following the Disaster. But in much the same way as it had one day on Coruscant, destiny intervened. Just like that day, Sam had sensed the presence of someone strong with the Force in their vicinity while they were out for a leisurely walk, and soon enough she was giving the speech she’d heard Cere give to dozens of parents, including her own mother.

Dash had only been a few months old when Alderaan had been destroyed and had lived almost his entire life on the colony, after he and his parents survived by the pure chance of having been off-world on holiday when the Empire had unleashed its horrible weapon. He remembered nothing of his homeworld and had been taught little about it by the time he’d crossed their path. But his parents were eager for him to learn about Alderaan, and so when Sam promised them that she -- and Cara -- would take as much care to teach him about that as she would teaching him the ways of the Force, they found it easy to give their blessing.

Every day since she and Cara brought him on board, Sam saw their younger selves reflected in the boy. He was curious and passionate like her, brave and headstrong like Cara. When he wasn’t within earshot, there were often jokes thrown around by the crew that Dash could have very well been their own son. They always shrugged those off, but deep down they both knew they loved him like he was anyway. And so did the rest of the crew. They were all one big family, after all.

After a while there was finally movement in the arm-wrestling match. Mando grunted in frustration as Cara slammed his arm down in victory. Dash let out a cheer and held up his hand to her.

“Nice job!” he said with an unmistakable air of admiration.

Cara high-fived him with a grin. “Thanks, padamon.”

Sam rolled her eyes, having given up trying to correct her about the misuse of the word long ago. She suspected Cara was doing it on purpose anyway.

“Did you help her again? It’s not fair when you do that,” Mando protested with an accusatory point in Sam’s direction.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied with a straight face she tried hard to hold until he turned around, at which point she gave Cara a conspiratorial nod.

The Mandalorian grumbled as he went to leave, beckoning Dash to follow him. “Come on, kid. There’s bad influences in here. I’d hate for you to get corrupted.”

Sam nodded when the boy turned to her seeking permission and he went off with Mando, surely to be taught some other corrupt practice anyway.

“He’s right, you know,” Cara said once they were alone. “Cheating for me isn’t very fair.”

“Oh come on, the little womp rat always helps him when he’s around, I’m just maintaining balance,” the Jedi said in her defense. “Besides, that could have gone on forever and I want you all to myself for a while before we land.”

“You could have just asked,” the former shock trooper suggested, and Sam responded with a snort.

“Yeah right,” she said, stepping forward to close the gap between them. “When have I ever been able to pull you away from a contest or fight or anything like that?”

“Well you got me on this ship still,” Cara pointed out as she wrapped her arms around Sam’s waist. “I’m missing out on a lot of them just because of that.”

“What, do you...resent that?” the Jedi inquired with the quirk of an eyebrow.

“Are you asking me if I have second thoughts?”

“I suppose I am.”

“Why don’t you find out for yourself, Jedi?”

Cara pulled her closer to join their foreheads, and Sam already knew the answer, but she read her mind anyway.

It was always nice to hear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's that. Thanks everyone for reading and commenting! This is probably the most ambitious thing I've ever tried to write and I don't think I could have finished it without all the kind words along the way
> 
> Unfortunately I don't know what to work on after this, so if anybody has suggestions or prompts I'm open to considering them. Not having a solid idea for the first time since February is strange and I don't like it!
> 
> Anyway go play Fallen Order if you haven't, it's great. And thanks again.


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